In-Store: Lauren K. Watel: Book of Potions w/ Ruth Dickey & Abi Pollokoff

Event guidelines:

• All attendees are encouraged to wear face masks at all times.
• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity in-store. Each ticket comes with either a copy of the book or a $10 store gift card.
• Additional copies of the featured book will be available for purchase in-store.
• A book signing will follow the talk.
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].

Winner of the 2023 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky.

Written with tremendous urgency and ferocious candor, the prose poems of Book of Potions captures a woman caught in the middle of life: no longer young, not yet old, trapped between generations, locked in stereotyped roles and stultifying social norms, confined by other people’s expectations and their projections of what a woman should be.

By turns enraged, funny, frustrated, astute and joyful, these short hybrid pieces (potion = poem + fiction) combine the lyric compression of poetry with the narrative expansiveness of prose. Readers will meander, spellbound, through a wildly imaginative dream world of fairy-tale landscapes, allegorical insights, social satire, thought experiments and vivid surreal imagery, scenes of otherworldly strangeness and haunting beauty. These potions are elixirs in language, some healing, some poisonous, all magical.

Lauren K. Watel’s debut book, a collection of prose poetry entitled BOOK of POTIONS (potion = poem + fiction), was awarded the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky, and will be published in February 2025 by Sarabande Books. Her poetry, fiction, essays and translations have appeared widely. A native of Dallas, TX, she lives in Decatur, GA. https://www.laurenkwatel.com

Ruth Dickey has spent 30 years working at the intersection of community building, writing, and art. The recipient of a Mayor’s Arts Award from Washington DC, Ruth is the author of Our hollowness sings (Unicorn Press, 2024), and Mud blooms (Harbor Mountain Press, 2019), and an ardent fan of dogs and coffee. More at http://www.ruthdickey.com

Abi Pollokoff is a poet, editor, and book artist. Her work has appeared in publications such as TriQuarterly, Denver Quarterly, and Guernica and in such installations as the Summit Sound, the Seattle Convention Center sound installation. Abi was named a 2021 Jack Straw Writer and a 2019 Hugo Fellow. She has held residencies from The Seventh Wave, the Seattle Review of Books, and the Alice Gallery. In addition to her own writing, Abi is the managing editor of Poetry Northwest Editions and works in publishing. Abi received her MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, by way of Seattle, New Orleans, and the Chicagoland area. Find her at abipollokoff.com.

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