How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Thanks to Ava of Wunderkind PR, I am giving away one print copy of ‘How To Love The Empty Air’ by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.

Description How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Vulnerable, beautiful and ultimately life-affirming, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s work reaches new heights in her revelatory seventh collection of poetry. Continuing in her tradition of engaging autobiographical work, How to Love the Empty Air explores what happens when the impossible becomes real―for better and for worse.

Aptowicz’s journey to find happiness and home in her ever-shifting world sees her struggling in cities throughout America. When her luck changes―in love and in life―she can’t help but “tell the sun / tell the fields / tell the huge Texas sky…. / tell myself again and again until I believe it.” However, the upward trajectory of this new life is rocked by the sudden death of the poet’s mother. In the year that follows, Aptowicz battles the silencing power of grief with intimate poems burnished by loss and a hard-won humor, capturing the dance that all newly grieving must do between everyday living and the desire “to elope with this grief, / who is not your enemy, / this grief who maybe now is your best friend. / This grief, who is your husband, / the thing you curl into every night, / falling asleep in its arms…”

As in her award-winning The Year of No Mistakes, Aptowicz counts her losses and her blessings, knowing how despite it all, life “ripples boundless, like electricity, like joy / like… laughter, irresistible and bright, / an impossible thing to contain.”

Poem From How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

“Somnolence”

In my dreams, I’m always trying to wake up.

Usually, it’s because I think I’m late for work.

Even now, when writing is my only job, and

I’m a very kind boss, this anxiety plagues me.

Sometimes I’ll get out of bed in the middle

of the night and rush to put on pants and shoes,

not noticing the darkness everywhere. In my dreams,

I’m always behind, always forgetting something,

always disappointing someone. But when I wake,

the world shifts: I know who I am and what I have

to do. This is maybe why I am a morning person.

How happy I am to wake in this life I call mine.

Praise How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

“Grief is one of the most impossible things to put words to…Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz does the impossible.”—Sarah Kay, author of No Matter the Wreckage

“Aptowicz is something of a legend in NYC’s slam poetry scene. She is lively thoughtful, and approachable, looking to engage the audience with her work and deeply committed to the community that art and slam poetry can create.”—Jo Reed, NEA

About Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Year of No Mistakes, crowned the Book of the Year for Poetry by the Writers’ League of Texas. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction, most recently Dr Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, which spent three months on the New York Times Best Seller List.

Recent awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the ArtsEDGE write-in-residency at the University of Pennsylvania and the Amy Clampitt Residency. When not on the road, she lives in Austin with her husband Ernest Cline, author of the New York Times bestselling Ready Player One.

 Website: http://aptowicz.com/poet/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/coaptowicz

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Giveaway How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

This giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on April 6, 2018 midnight pacific time.  Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.

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