Incidental Pollen: Poems

by Ellen Austin-Li

94 pages, Paperback

Published May 20, 2025

Reviews

[Susan L. L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellen Austin-Li's INCIDENTAL POLLEN (Madville Publishing) is a beautiful, frank, and sweeping expanse of memory revisited—past lovers, the traumas of adolescence and adulthood, her work as a nurse, and all the beauty and possibility now seemingly lost to age—each return aiding in the slow work of self-reclamation, poem after poem the speaker longing to feel at home inside herself. Also prevalent is the difficult loss of her beloveds—her sister, her nephew, her father—and the question of how to live alongside that grief. Metaphors of the bee, the hive, the sting, the swarm, the nectar provide the scaffolding for these excavations, each poem a small ache, each poem abuzz with healing and survival. Overall, a gorgeous, tender, and extraordinarily raw collection with great use of form! Also seahorses, also foxes, also trees! 10/10 recommend!

[Iara Moure · Rating 2 out of 5]

La verdad que los poemas narrativos no son lo mio. Dame algo en lo que pueda ver una imagen a mi manerra, algo que diga "que lindo que es escribir". No siento que este poemario haya sido para mi

[Nancy Jentsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible poetry!