Ophelia: poems

by Celinda Olive

Celinda Olive

Celinda Olive is a poet residing in the Minneapolis area, and has her MFA in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. She's had words previously in boats against the current, Fathom Mag, Pomme Journal, Rock & Sling, and more. When she's not laboring over her words, she's growing her brood of houseplants, searching for new K-dramas to devour, or exploring new places in the Twin Cities area.

praise for Ophelia: poems

In these poems, we find “New cycles of old things, constantly redefined … ” as the versions of Ophelia we each carry meet the shades of another one Olive comes to help us encounter. “It’s dark. Words fail. Fear floods, / licks the neck, the chin, the lips.” Here is a voice finding itself and what it alone can know as it rises from our collective anxiety, depression, suffering — and hope.  

— Michael Dechane, author of The Long Invisible (forthcoming, 2024)

Celinda Olive’s debut chapbook reveals a poet confidently probing an intensely challenging subject: depression. Olive has crafted a voice that walks these dark halls and recounts what she sees in clear, compact images that often do not seem to fit together, giving us a true experience of the combined haziness and razor-sharp pain that accompanies depression. Olive’s Ophelia takes her place alongside Les Murray’s “black dog” as a voice out of a voiceless pain. This voice is hard-won; may this be the first collection of many for Olive.

— Jane Scharl, author of Ponds and Sonnez Les Matins