Christie Beckwith explodes onto the page with "I'd give anything to believe / and maybe that is mercy," sweeping us into a debut collection that maps a crumbling near-apocalyptic society shaped by violence and cruelty while still offering hope and tenderness. These poems urge us to connect with our underdog selves and remain steadfast there, suggesting that survival itself is a quiet form of power. Moving fluidly through form, from pantoum to psalm for panic, her collection becomes a delicious encounter that asks more of the reader with every turn. Even as Beckwith warns, "We are spinning out, only I'm keeping mine inside," she lays poem after poem with deep empathy, insisting that life remains good enough to make memories, and that struggle may simply be the cost of being human.
Christie is a pushcart-nominated poet, author, and freelance editor. She is the author of the anthology Boaz's Barley and Other Borrowed Stories, published in 2023, and the children's book Ellie the Elephant Has A Sleep Study. You can find her poetry in Viridine Literary, Anti-Heroin Chic, Anodyne, Quarter Press's online journal (ly), Ink & Marrow, as well as forthcoming work in South Broadway Press (Spring 2026), among others. Common themes in her writing include collective grief, as well as navigating womanhood with anxiety and ADHD. You can find her at open mics across the US, where she travels for her day job conducting Alzheimer's research. She wants to live everywhere she visits, but is always happy to return to Massachusetts, where she loves her three boys, the cat, and two dogs.