Cataclysm Moves Me I Regret to Say: Poems

by Stephanie Yue Duhem

In dreamy, vivid verse that sways between talky confessionalism and formal elegance, Stephanie Yue Duhem confronts the large and small cataclysms that make up a life—from the tumult of immigration to the awkwardness of social foibles, the pandemic to the technological singularity, the anguish of lost love to the demands of art.

“[Duhem’s] collection is a place where ancient personae make contact with the idioms and vocabularies of the twenty-first century…”—RYAN RUBY, author of Context Collapse

“...slides between the nostalgic confines of our earthly bodies and the truth of our discomforting futures.”—ELLE NASH, author of Deliver Me

“[These poems] fly off like Noah’s raven and his dove, tinged with the vital twin possibilities of failure and hope.”—TOM SNARSKY, author of Reclaimed Water

“Readers will find themselves rereading stanzas under surreal skies replete with birdsong—baffled by the prowess of Duhem’s perception…”—SHY WATSON, author of Horror Vacui

“A spectacular, tender, and sensitive book of poems—but also alarmingly funny, even in its mood of socio-technological gloom.”—TAWANDA MULALU, author of Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die

“...this collection feels like strolling in and out of a manor house, or gold leaf catching wind…”—GABI ABRÃO, author of Notes on Shapeshifting

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

Published June 24, 2025

Reviews

[el]

not for me….i find i tend to be pretty averse to excessive rhyming/alliteration in the poetry collections i read and this is littered with a sensibility for sound, especially off-beat, anachronistic sound. at times, the melding of that sensibility and the more contemporary, confessional voice yue duhem inhabits felt jarring.

if you’re an enjoyer of poetry primarily through the axis of sonic architecture, maybe this will be for you. 2.4/5.

[James]

My favorite poem in here was "An Ordinary Hour," possibly because it threw in a reference to Cthulhu

[Kerry Quinn]

she had me at the opening line of the first poem: stop trying to fix broken men. with each passing poem i found depth, humor, mysticism, magic. i'm so glad i found this collection at time being books in austin!

[Kathryn Bailey]

poetry that feels both timeless and of-the-moment! as a fellow writer, i really admire steph’s syntax and line-making; she has put together a collection that is simultaneously masterful and accessible.

[Wallace Barker]

Absolutely beautiful and transcendent collection. The first thing one notices is the brilliant use of language. The writing is so dense with meaning, every word suggests multiple interpretations. There is a surface way to read this book for the clever language and evocative imagery, and that approach will yield plenty of enjoyment. But the reader can go deeper into the code and thus deeper into meaning.

Don't get me wrong, these poems are not riddles to solve. But if you are willing to hold their multiple branching paths simultaneously in your mind, you will be rewarded with a kind of tapestry that clicks into focus as the whole becomes visible. This is almost a spiritual experience-- a type of revelation. Through this book, the reader sees the world as it is, the heaven that it could be, and the cataclysm that will surely move you too.

[Addie Oscher]

My customer’s have really enjoyed coming across this book. Every copy we had sold the first weekend we got them in. There’s something magical about the subject matter within this collection, that makes people want to play that game of opening it to the page that's calling to them.. And I think that’s what I initially loved about all the separate works, which come from the same universe, but are so wide ranging, each one feels like a spell. This is a book where you discover a page, and can’t help but read it to the person sitting across from you.

[Codycvlp]

house of vlad has been my favorite publisher lately and when i saw this was announced, the title and cover certainly grabbed my attention, with that being said, although i feel the poems were really well written and besides being vested in a few of them, this collection didn’t do much for me.

[blair costello]

My favorite is the name of this angel:

"
He is already
a smile-hued dream.

Camera obscura, definition:
light punches a hole

and beams.
"

[Ashley]

stellar collection moving through nature and apps, humor and pensiveness. tender, honest, and sharp!

[Daniel]

I want to write something poetic to describe this collection. Describe how lovely these poems are and how each one shows clear care in it's craft. But the best most honest thing I can say is that by rights I should mark this book as read twice because I did, in fact, read each poem in it at least twice.