Chapbook: song & ruins by Allegra Wilson

“It is difficult to write poems that are equal parts bold grit and immeasurable tenderness--and it is rare to get to read these kind of poems. This poet has created this stunning and electric equilibrium. The poet writes, "I could fill whole rivers with the mud of what I never meant to do." This powerful line encapsulates the collection--the landscape, the dirt, the awe and regret of what it means to live, and to desire, in a queer body. The poems question norms just as much as they lean into the gritty, beautiful strangeness of imagining it all otherwise.”

—Stacey Waite, judge 2025 LBP First Chapbook Award

author of A Real Man Would Have a Gun