Might Could

by Anna Lena Phillips Bell

In Might Could, Anna Lena Phillips Bell considers how to make a life in hurricane country, amid a verdant landscape touched by industrial pollution and the climate crisis. Poems to familiar plants and to everyday objects—marigolds, a vase, a spoon—invite the reader in, while others act as notes to self, offering wry reminders. At the collection’s core is an extraordinary crown, “Bref Doubles for a Late Conception,” imagining a hoped-for child. Even as they carry the knowledge of potential and actual harm, Bell’s profound, formally inventive poems establish an expansive sense of place and play. With precise intonation, uncanny and often exuberant diction, and subtle humor, Might Could contemplates meaningful companionship with one’s own body, with human family, and with the more-than-human world.

73 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2026

About the author

Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St Brigid Press. New work appears in The Georgia Review, Orion, Electric Literature, The Southern Review, and poets.org. Her honors include a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in literature, and her writing and artist’s books have received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Penland School of Craft, and Marble House Project. Bell teaches in the creative writing department at UNC Wilmington, where she is the editor of Ecotone. She lives with her family near what’s now called the Cape Fear River.

Reviews

[Lesley Wheeler]

Every gorgeous poem in this book is a cherished home place, highlighting poetry's ability to create charmed spaces through rhyme, rhythm, and exquisite attention to the more-than-human world. PFAS course through the local river and language itself contains traces of violence, but in this intensely lyric collection, Anna Lena Phillips Bell imagines ways to live more gently, with more delight. Put away your terrible to-do list and spend time here. You'll feel better for it.

[Alarie]

I just read Ms. Bell’s book, Ornament, a few months ago, who was awarded her book prize by Geoffrey Brock, whom I happen to know. This time another poet I’m aware of, Shane McCrae, gave her the award. Looks like the author is off and running in her career.

Personally, I was a bit more partial to Ornament, but I’m going to let all the poetry readers out there judge for themselves.

[Virginia]

a deeply southern/north carolinian book that noticed the world intentionally and takes itself juuuuust seriously enough. plus it’s largely formalist!!! lovely poetry & anna lena is an absolute sweetheart, i’m very lucky to have met her this spring