inSPIREd

Poetry Series

inSPIREd is a new poetry chapbook series edited by Spire founder Shelly Reed.

Submission to the inSPIREd poetry series is by invitation only.

inSPIREd selections to date include:

Receive the first seven selections + a bonus hardcover notebook for a special price of $45.

Free shipping on all Spire books.

Buzz for inSPIREd selections:

"Like a leaf tumbling through autumn air, Margaret J Hoehn's poems shimmer in lyrical light, each reflecting, as it floats down the page, the swirls and eddies, the detailed nuances, of our common human experience." —Jay Rubin Editor, Alehouse Press

"Alice Pettway’s Barbed Wire and Bedclothes explores the familiar and finds it all akimbo and sharp-elbowed. A daughter confronts her mother, conjuring her own fetal anger: “could you feel the pulse of my resentment?” and cringes at her mother’s “every glance, a confirmation of failure.” Love itself is a “struggle” here, “flint-sharp.” Even the body is at war with itself, menaced by mastectomy, threatening dissolution. And yet the rough-and-tumble of real life is rewarded by the knowledge that “those who have treasured / their battles and blunders / will never do battle alone.” These poems are terse, precise, evocative, and sensuous; to anyone grown timid or lazy or comfortable, they send a challenge: “cut the barbed wire now and chance the landmines.” —Philip Appleman

"In her third chapbook Michele Battiste presents poems of such a dynamic intelligence that the reader finds herself exhilarated: it’s like riding with the top down!  The view expands to take in what was never expected: an old woman in a shoe, palendromic numbers, the pain of not quite being Humphrey Bogart.  Even a poem about the long lines women endure at intermission.  And when did you last read a poem about Kegel exercises?  A wry benediction for a child in the womb places the whole world in perspective.  Battiste has an exceedingly sharp eye and an even sharper wit.  Smart, passionate, and complex, these poems remind us that our lives are far more exciting than we sometimes think." —Kelly Cherry, author of Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems