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PULSE
Named for the Pulse nightclub shooting and the rhythm of heartbeats, this collection of poems grapples with finding life amid profound losses.
The poems of PULSE look deeply into a troubled world, inspecting what makes us suffer and demonstrating how we overcome difficulties. PULSE interrogates painful losses of friends to cancer, harmful politics, hate crimes, and mass shootings, including the 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub. Maria Nazos examines the life force that continues to pulse relentlessly through a fragmented world, that enables us to flow, breathe, and regenerate, even through grief and loss. From Provincetown beaches and Costa Rican crab shacks to Midwestern plains and a Tampa nightclub, the collection moves through madness, redemption, and love.
The poems of PULSE look deeply into a troubled world, inspecting what makes us suffer and demonstrating how we overcome difficulties. PULSE interrogates painful losses of friends to cancer, harmful politics, hate crimes, and mass shootings, including the 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub. Maria Nazos examines the life force that continues to pulse relentlessly through a fragmented world, that enables us to flow, breathe, and regenerate, even through grief and loss. From Provincetown beaches and Costa Rican crab shacks to Midwestern plains and a Tampa nightclub, the collection moves through madness, redemption, and love.
98 pages, Paperback
Published June 5, 2026
About the author
Maria Nazos
5 books13 followersPoet, translator, and memoirist Maria Nazos has been published in The New Yorker, TriQuarterly, World Literature Today, The Columbia Review, The Denver Quarterly, The Mid-American Review, American Life in Poetry, The Greensboro Review, The North American Review, The Tampa Review, Anomaly, The Florida Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere.
A Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared in renowned anthologies including What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump, (Northwestern University Press, 2020) edited by Martín Espada, and Nasty Woman, An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (Lost Horse Press, 2017). Maria is the author of two collections of poetry: Still Life (Dancing Girl Press 2016) and A Hymn That Meanders (Wising Up Press 2011).
She served for three years as Ted Kooser's editorial assistant for his "American Life in Poetry" nationally-syndicated column. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis and a minor in Women's and Gender Studies from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has received an Academy of American Poets Award, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from The Sewanee Writers' Conference, scholarships from The Santa Fe Art Institute, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, The Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and fellowships from The University of Nebraska, The Vermont Studio Center, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
A Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared in renowned anthologies including What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump, (Northwestern University Press, 2020) edited by Martín Espada, and Nasty Woman, An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (Lost Horse Press, 2017). Maria is the author of two collections of poetry: Still Life (Dancing Girl Press 2016) and A Hymn That Meanders (Wising Up Press 2011).
She served for three years as Ted Kooser's editorial assistant for his "American Life in Poetry" nationally-syndicated column. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis and a minor in Women's and Gender Studies from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has received an Academy of American Poets Award, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from The Sewanee Writers' Conference, scholarships from The Santa Fe Art Institute, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, The Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and fellowships from The University of Nebraska, The Vermont Studio Center, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 9, 2026
I was moved and felt the need to ‘see’ the poet behind PULSE namely Maria Nazos. Who was the poet to create such sublime and white-hot verse? There are elements of Gaia (earth goddess), Nemesis (goddess of retribution and vengeance) abhorring hubris. There is Lilith (voice and presence of strength and contrary convictions adored by Dante Rossetti naming her hair as “first gold”). There are rich striations of Anita O’Day who wore jackets as a 40’s jazz siren. She would match the swagger of any band leader of her time.
Is this the same poet who held together body and soul as a whale watch boat attendant and barista? Yes . . . and so I found her voice and vision in the thirty-four poems in this formidable collection.
I share my reflections on several of her pieces:
I begin with Oil (p. 38) “As I was pouring a much-needed drink after sampling my spaghetti, ______ told me it could user some olive oil . . . he hands me the oil that I bought from a proselytizing man at the general store.” These words reflect the mundane and the otherworldly nature of this poem. Further “. . . This is Nebraska, where for decades, a Black Panther was imprisoned, and where some recent graffiti reiterates these convictions still exist . . ..” The currency of this poem is often the fracture of truth and indolence, conviction, and hollow tones. Remarkable work indeed.
Woman to Woman (p.63) shares the harsh truth of abuse and misogyny spelled out between women as kindred spirits and pissed off voices rung out of tired and bruised bodies. “. . . There is this thing inside him that won’t stop chewing you, but there’s still time to run before you see what he’s done . . . “The other woman says . . . “Maybe this time, he won’t need to heat every room with rage. Maybe he can change temperature to one that falls below a hungered pitch that propels his fists . . . “The voice of reason may move the voice of self loathing to leave the abuser. The reader waits and does not know the outcome.
Finally, I select Closer to the Light (p.85) The serendipity and crack of cosmic billiard balls that define life giving and life ending circumstances races through this poem. “. . . you may be grieving the absence of a lover fighting overseas or a friend who refuses to die from a disease that singes his edges . . .” The poem continues “Tonight the world is on fire . . . Yet that’s how every hope is born - formed out of heat and pressure. It smoulders and sends up smoke, which we read as saying, Help, and we do . . . “
I highly recommend this collection for any reader who is enthusiastic about poetry and engaged in life. This work provides words that counsel and that plant the seeds of lifelong curiosity.
Is this the same poet who held together body and soul as a whale watch boat attendant and barista? Yes . . . and so I found her voice and vision in the thirty-four poems in this formidable collection.
I share my reflections on several of her pieces:
I begin with Oil (p. 38) “As I was pouring a much-needed drink after sampling my spaghetti, ______ told me it could user some olive oil . . . he hands me the oil that I bought from a proselytizing man at the general store.” These words reflect the mundane and the otherworldly nature of this poem. Further “. . . This is Nebraska, where for decades, a Black Panther was imprisoned, and where some recent graffiti reiterates these convictions still exist . . ..” The currency of this poem is often the fracture of truth and indolence, conviction, and hollow tones. Remarkable work indeed.
Woman to Woman (p.63) shares the harsh truth of abuse and misogyny spelled out between women as kindred spirits and pissed off voices rung out of tired and bruised bodies. “. . . There is this thing inside him that won’t stop chewing you, but there’s still time to run before you see what he’s done . . . “The other woman says . . . “Maybe this time, he won’t need to heat every room with rage. Maybe he can change temperature to one that falls below a hungered pitch that propels his fists . . . “The voice of reason may move the voice of self loathing to leave the abuser. The reader waits and does not know the outcome.
Finally, I select Closer to the Light (p.85) The serendipity and crack of cosmic billiard balls that define life giving and life ending circumstances races through this poem. “. . . you may be grieving the absence of a lover fighting overseas or a friend who refuses to die from a disease that singes his edges . . .” The poem continues “Tonight the world is on fire . . . Yet that’s how every hope is born - formed out of heat and pressure. It smoulders and sends up smoke, which we read as saying, Help, and we do . . . “
I highly recommend this collection for any reader who is enthusiastic about poetry and engaged in life. This work provides words that counsel and that plant the seeds of lifelong curiosity.
Displaying 1 of 1 review