Romanticization of Grief and Ghosts, by Annalisa Hansford

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features. What if romanticizing one’s grief is the only way to cope with it? If you kill your grief does the ghost of that grief linger? Romanticization of Grief and Ghosts seeks to answer these questions by exploring the intimacy between a person and their grief. The poems in this collection reflect on the ache of emotionally abusive friendships, trauma that resurfaces through dreams, and the obsessive nature of the speaker’s desire. “Of girls, of ghosts, of grief, of memory and teeth: Annalisa Hanford’s collection of poems is an exploration of loss by way of the poetics. The poet is expert in the deployment of language: they make certain that each word and image holds in the mouth like a ‘switchblade dreams of being held by a fist.’ Romanticization of Grief and Ghosts, by way of the writer, makes sure duende, the spirit, shows itself in content and form. Each enjambed line offers a whisper and a haunting that shifts, clarifies, surprises, or enchants the reader. This collection, monumental, is a dangerously beautiful coming-of-age tale of desire gone sour or sad.” —Porsha Olayiwola, Poet Laureate, City of Boston, author of i shimmers sometimes, too “Calling on voices from Anne Carson to Taylor Swift, Annalisa’s writing relentlessly examines and reexamines desire and its side effects of loneliness and violence from dozens of angles. Their imagery is delightfully adolescent with its college dorm rooms and childhood backyards, while also urging us to consider the kind of ferocious wanting that can haunt such seemingly innocent spaces. Romanticization, like love, is full of tense paradox, a space where even abandonment can be something to be desired— ‘God, / I hate living but love loneliness.’” —Kaylee Jeong, Winner of COUNTERCLOCK’s 2023 Emerging Writer’s Awards “In Romanticization of Grief and Ghosts, Annalisa Hansford calls upon contemporary influences from Paige Lewis to Taylor Swift, winking at the poetic self-indictment of confessionalism in their consideration of queer adolescence and its growing pains. What does it mean to romanticize that which has been lost, those who are not here? What does it mean to lose, really lose, and reckon with such absence for the first time? Hansford interrogates and complicates these questions by surveying the landscape of a past relationship in conversation with the loneliness inherent to socioeconomic estrangement from one’s peers. Their work shines at its most direct: ‘It’s not that I can’t afford it, you told me. It’s just that the world / owes me.’” —Maria Gray, Winner of The Lumiere Review’s 2022 Writing Contest, author of Universal Red Annalisa Hansford (they/them) is from Pennsylvania and studies Creative Writing at Emerson College. Their poetry appears or is forthcoming in The West Review, Ghost City Review, Vagabond City, The Lumiere Review, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere. Their work has received honors from Isele Magazine, 1455 Literary Arts, Joliet Public Library, and Grindstone Literary. They are the co-editor-in-chief of hand picked poetry, a poetry editor for The Emerson Review and Hominum Journal, and a reader for Sundress Publications.