Choose Your Own Beginning

by Amy Saul-Zerby

“Amy Saul-Zerby’s language is direct, beautifully clipped—a terseness that poem after poem swells into an expansive reckoning with depression, love, and, of course, the self. Insight, here, is hard-won. These memorable poems ripple with intimacies and linguistic pleasures. They will stay with you.” Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine “Amy Saul-Zerby’s unforgettable new poetry collection is revelatory in its frankness and sexy in its cool detachment. Hungry, seductive, confessional, pithy, the intimacy of these poems is bracing and gorgeous.” Richie Hofmann, author of A Hundred Lovers “Choose Your Own Beginning is a collection of beauty, devastation, and deep resilience resonating through every poem.” Ariel Francisco, author of Under Capitalism If Your Head Aches They Just Yank Off Your Head

79 pages, Paperback

Published November 3, 2022

Reviews

[Neil McCrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we have a slender volume of spare, intimate, confessional poetry. It is not overtly novel in content or form, although it is certainly sharply felt. One talent that Amy Saul-Zerby absolutely has that I have never mastered is a sense of the zeitgeist. Even in the poems that use universal rather than specific language there is a sense of now, of the present, of this particular moment in time. This is no small achievement.

[Jonathan Koven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, soul-baring collection by local poet Amy Saul-Zerby who read at Mystic Orchards' (my own collection's) launch. This one's a page-turner; sparse, intimate, immediate, where every word stirs with lived-in memory and wisdom. Highly recommend!