Before the Flowers

Jackie Hollowell

Jackie Hollowell

Jackie Hollowell (she/her) is an extremely queer writer originally from the Pacific Northwest but now lives in Vietnam. She has been published in or has work forthcoming from Rogue Agent, The Dawn Review, Arcana Poetry Press, and elsewhere. You can find her speaking about poetry and literature on youtube or follow her on instagram: @6_hollowell

praise for Before the Flowers

Jackie Hollowell’s Before the Flowers offers a lyrical story of breaking free from social expectations and of a woman reclaiming her place in the natural world. Hollowell has a compelling, distinctive voice, one that has learned to taste both “mint” and “rot” in the same air. Through spare but vivid imagery and mesmerizing rhythms linking the cosmic and the earthly, she offers readers a kind of spiritual anthropology: bullets on altars, hands returning to soil, a self “reborn with the same dirt under my nails.” Before the Flowers acts as an overarching metaphor, reminding us that before any blossoming there must first be seeds, then darkness, roots, and finally the courage to grow toward the light.

- Debbie ‘DJ’ Lee, Regents Professor of English at Washington State University