Filibuster to Delay a Kiss: And Other Poems

Family was a whitewashed, / milk-toothed word / that couldn’t account for the mother / who wept and burnt / the roast if the floor was dirty– / or if it was Tuesday, or there were clouds.

Written in an eloquent and searingly honest voice, these poems address the pain and pleasure of growing up. Courtney Queeney tells intense emotional truths in poetry that is at once personal and universal. She exposes the rawness of a complicated relationship with her mother–She mothered the disorder in me,...