Superbloom

by Catherine Esposito Prescott

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published February 11, 2026

Reviews

[mixedreader]

These poems will capture you with imagery rich descriptions of the natural world set alongside tender moments of motherhood, love and grief. This collection is dedicated to the author’s late son, Austen, and many instances the contemplation of her grief, of his cancer journey, shine plainly, cutting through the description of a forest like a sharp sunbeam. In the titular poem, the author starts out with the images of “Striped rocks saddle the shoreline/ of the park where sea rocks like long otters / or ancient watery tombs draped with grass/ the color of something grown to its peak/ before the rot.” Then a turn in a poem “I cannot remember/ a time when I have cried more,” leads into a direct comment about cancer, then science, the back to grounding imagery that stays rooted in emotion: “poppies about orange, the agave screams/ its yellow flowers up towards an imaginary sun.”

I learned from Prescott’s writing how to see grief as multifaceted, as settled into each tender aspect of our experience of the world. Grief is something worthy of precious study, of awe. It’s worthy of being held.

[S. Salazar]

Superbloom thrusts readers into the highly charged intersection of grief and mental health, capturing Catherine Esposito Prescott’s journey after her son Austen’s sudden, terminal brain cancer diagnosis. Through stream‑of‑consciousness poems like the “Fallen Poem” and “Meditation on [ ]” series, Prescott offers an honest portrayal of what no one should ever have to endure and a gorgeous memorialization of Austen beyond his illness.

The meditations on song and on yellow lingered with me most: vulnerable, visceral explorations of motherhood, loss, and the impossible task of naming a grief that reshapes identity. Prescott’s leaps in voice and image reveal both the lurking creature of grief and its bared teeth. Superbloom is devastating, tender, and deeply human, a place where Austen’s story lives on as “…bouquets of light—broken stars, / shards of lit bulbs, stems of sunlight,” (“The Beautiful Goodbye,” lns 2-3).

[DeeSoul]

We know very well what I am missing. We have no
language for who I am, for what I may become.
— pg 54, "Meditation on Yellow"

A superbloom is a rare event that turns a desert to a field of vibrant wildflowers. Loss is a common event that becomes a field we stumble through, though it always feels unexpected. In Prescott’s collection, we encounter a mother walking through an impossible grief, reflecting on both the past and an unforeseeable future. In between accounts of the medical process, we are met by mediations on colors, light, and beauty. In this collection, Prescott offers us poems that make room for her grief, all of our grief, and turns it over to the blue blue sky.

[Ann Wallace]

Oh my heart, this book. How does a bereaved mother write with such beauty about her 18-year-old son’s illness and death? “I scavenged / language to make these poems. They / are what’s left of the fire, they are the ashes / breathed into my skin and what / remains of our impossible year” (“Fallen Poem”). But, here, the arc of Austen’s life does not bend toward pain and loss—though that is here too—but with a “stampede of joy.” Here, we learn not just of the cancer but of all that it took—the funny, adventuresome, kind, loving, exuberant boy—and we, as readers, feel the loss profoundly through Prescott’s poems.

[Mary Schatz]

Both spiritual and grounded, this profound, insightful, and deeply moving collection of poems explores the grief of losing a child. Written with a survivor's wisdom and a mother's heart, it reminds us to treasure each moment and take nothing for granted.

[Andy McCarthy]

Amazing and heartfelt set of poetry!