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Languish
Paperback
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Published: Jun 22 2026
Pages: 92
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
These bold and deeply personal poems explore what it is to feel chronic loneliness and longing, to be trapped inside the self. But this speaker watches and listens. He observes flowers, meadow mice, dust, cloud light, robin song, curls of frost - and we see that observance is the beginning of connection. Can't you hear, Butlett writes, how my stammer / rises, determined to touch / your heart? The persistent power of the natural world, of human voices, of one's own hesitant but determined voice, is enough to bring us together - enough, perhaps, to save us. Languish is a wise and beautiful book. It gives me hope.
-Corrinne Clegg Hales, author, To Make it Right and Autumn House Press Poetry Prize winner
Incredibly vulnerable, Jacob Butlett, in his latest collection Languish, writes: Today, I drove / down icy streets, wearing a flannel scarf, hoping / pedestrians might wonder where I was going. In an art built from tension and tenderness, Butlett skillfully balances the two, navigating all manner of adversity. With adept perception, and from a voice abounding in nature, comes a lyrical florescence that reminds us why anything and everything is worth more of our attention. An exploration of the self as much as it is a meditation on life's battles, this is a work full / of thunderous tears, determined as ever...
-Michael Torres, author, An Incomplete List of Names and National Poetry Series winner
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