Laura Reece Hogan*

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of two full-length poetry collections. Her new book, Butterfly Nebula, is the 2022 winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry and is published by the University of Nebraska Press. In this collection, Hogan focuses both on the micro and the macro, the deep and the distant, as she ponders the galaxies, life on the ocean floor, flowers, and insects ― from immense nebulae, right down to disembodied human tear glands growing in a petri dish.

Marjorie Maddox has said of Butterfly Nebula, “Astronomical, biological, ecological, theological, metaphorical…How dazzling the shine of these poems, how far-reaching their light."

Besides writing poetry, Hogan is the author of the theology book I Live, No Longer I (2017, Wipf & Stock) which was a winner at the American Bookfest Awards, The Illumination Book Awards, and the Catholic Press Association Book Awards.

The following poem, from the new collection, first appeared in The Inflectionist Review.

Prayer For Traversing the Eye

If I molt
peel and cast
the assemblage,
push aside / bend
behind can I sliver
shiver atoms spectral
can you splinter me
cut down the camel
of me shatter me
until I shed me
can you shove
me through
this frail
slit?

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Laura Reece Hogan: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.