Largemouth, by Gabriella Heptinstall

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Largemouth, the debut chapbook from poet Gabriella Heptinstall, commemorates the emergence of a newborn voice through sensorial experiences of crisis, love, grief, sex, and growth. Instead of telling the emotions and thoughts of a wallflower during life-altering events, these poems awaken the impacts they have on the body through abstract descriptions, jarring imagery, and lush allusions to all things water. Dive into the exploration of bodily experiences through intrusive and intimate pieces where carnal delight can meet odious despair in the same moment. As water shifts from rain to snow to steam, memories change their form through the seasons of life. What used to be a nightmare now may float in the conscious as a dream. Largemouth embraces these inconsistencies as a fundamental of being human. Gabriella “Gabi” Heptinstall is an emerging author, artist, and poet with a passion for the abstract and unusual. She is currently studying for her BA in English and Creative Writing at Loyola University Chicago and is a resident poet of Chicago’s WNDR Museum. Largemouth is Gabi’s first publication, and she hopes to have many more in the future. She enjoys playing sports in the sunshine with her friends, engrossing herself in fantastical literature, and doodling in the margins of a notebook.