May You Step Forward, by Jess Pulver

Poetry, chapbook, 48 pages, from Bottlecap Features. May You Step Forward is a collection of poems about the experience of being the mother of a child named Leo who has Cerebral Palsy. Spanning a timeline from his traumatic birth to turning thirteen, the poems are full of the crises and triumphs of daily life (bedtime routines, haircuts, leg braces) which are often one and the same. Set on New England hillsides, in pharmacies, hospitals, restaurants and cemeteries, the poems express the layering of guilt, frustration, grief, determination, fear and joy felt by both the poet and her son as they navigated the years of his childhood together. Written entirely in second person, mostly in free verse but including a smattering of poems in form, the chapbook reads as a sort of extended prayer, or blessing, containing despair, yearning, confession, and belief. Although the poems address Leo directly, and were crafted out of hope and care for his experience, they are meant to be a conversation with any reader who has grappled with the complications of parenting, disability, or trauma. Jess Pulver is a therapist, wife, and mother of three nestled in the woods outside Portland, Maine. In her free time, she tends a large garden, meditates, and jumps in the ocean. She has recently returned to the writing life after majoring in creative writing over twenty years ago at Swarthmore College. Her poems and non-fiction essays have appeared in The Good Life Review, Waccamaw, Yalobusha Review, Griffel, Scapegoat Review, Literary Mama, The Examined Life, and Kaleidoscope. She is driven by an appreciation for nuance and complexity in the worlds of language and feelings.