NEW AUGUST 2024
“Suspended In My Insecticide Jar is tumultuous, filled with dread and doubt, but Clara McAuley provides the reader with hope-weighted anchors to cling to throughout. On the surface, this appears to be a book about death, but really, these are poems about bringing a battered boat to harbor in a storm. Ultimately, it’s a book about living, despite seeing no reason to do so. This is a stunning debut by McAuley and I would recommend it again and again.”
—Prudence Brooks, @prudence.writes “‘They do not write our happy endings. Tragedy is easier to sell,’ says Clara McAuley in her poem, They Like to Kill Us Off. The determination to be the author of her own literal and figurative narrative is an impelling force behind the visceral and nuanced collection of poems. With the delicacy of the myriad moths that dance within and between the poems, McAuley brings transparency and urgency to experiences with mental health, body dysmorphia and disordered eating. In doing so, the author often brings focus to the stomach, subtly invoking the solar plexus chakra, associated with strength and inner power—an appropriate invocation because such are the qualities of her writing and the burning question, ‘if we were moths, to what light would we be drawn?’” —Zachary Kluckman, author of Rearview Funhouse & Some of It is Muscle, Founder of MindWell Poetry 56 pages | A5 5.83 x 8.27 in. | 2024 ISBN-13: 978-1-958600-08-5 (paperback) $15 |
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Clara McAuley (she/her) is a queer poet from Portland, Oregon. Having graduated high school in 2023, she is now studying Pre-Med Biology and Creative Writing at Lehigh University, where she intends to costume theater productions, rant about social justice issues, and perform aerial silks in her spare time. Her work has previously been published in The Song Between Our Stars and Up North Literary Journal, and it can also be found on her Instagram, @moths_and_poetry.