Join us for the release of Cecily Stone's These Chasms in the Earth!

Click "Get Tickets" to RSVP & pre-order your copy to pick up at the event.
Limited copies available for purchase at event.

Featuring Guest Poets

Marissa Forbes, Ahja Fox, Elizabeth Woods-Darby

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About These Chasms in the Earth:

There are certain parts of the wild mystery of motherhood that have yet to be described. In These Chasms in the Earth: Upheaval Poems on Motherhood, Sacrifice, and Self, Cecily Stone writes of love and loss, of trying and failing to hold a family together, and of what to tell the children when it all falls apart. In this collection, a story unfolds as we descend downward into the cracks of self-sacrifice. We are forced to ask: how much of a mother’s self can she give away before she is gone completely? The voices of Stone and her tribe rise and merge together at the base of the mountains in this staggering collection of poems and essays of motherhood, madness, betrayal, loss, and redemption. These Chasms in the Earth is a story of erupting, of falling, and of triumphantly learning to climb.

About Cecily Stone:

Cecily Stone is a mother, writer, computer nerd, and author of These Chasms in the Earth. Her works have appeared in Welcoming The Muse (Twenty Bellows), Poems in Praise of Libraries (World Stage Press), Canvas Creative Arts Magazine (Indiana University), Gypsophila Literary Magazine, Retrograde Review, and on a set of compost liners distributed by Compost Colorado. Stone shares her stories of motherhood, sacrifice, and rebirth at open mics and on Instagram: @cecilystonespeaks. On the weekends, you can usually find her behind the mic, outdoors climbing rocks, or camping with her husband Michael and their large zoo of children and pets.

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Praise for These Chasms in the Earth:

Cecily Stone is “still erupting” in this vivid and visceral collection, leaving pieces of herself to devour along the way. These Chasms in the Earth provides no escape clause, and grips from the very beginning and does not let go. In these pages, Stone explores the intricacies of motherhood, the scars a family can inflict through generations, and the power in “wielding the flickering lights to write” something gorgeous, strong, and true. This collection is a roar, a spike of cayenne, and a dare to jump into a chasm to find out you have the beefiest goddamn biceps with the power to re-define and create a life worth loving and passing down.
—Tyler Hurula, author of Too Pretty for Plain Coffee

“Like a collage or a shattered mirror, Cecily Stone’s debut book, These Chasms in the Earth, reveals a narrative in pieces. Each piece tantalizes—little glimpses of wisdom, humor, and truth to keep the reader wondering, turning pages. Stone sings of resilience, struggle, horror, betrayal, love, and new beginnings. She reminds us that to be open to life means “swallowing the sky,” taking in its entirety, unfiltered.
— Jessica Gnoza, author of Little Box of Light

“Cecily has the ability to take you there. Her command of language and narrative complexity allows for an immersive experience into motherhood, love, and how to fight back with all the art in your body.”
— Marie Timbreza, MAT, author of Sustenance: 50 Poems + One Love Story

“These Chasms in the Earth explores myth and dispels commonly-accepted ideology about the purity and passage of motherhood. Cecily Stone speaks truth to expectation about becoming. The writing is unfiltered. There is anger, humor, sadness, loss, a fight for dignity, and also joy. Cecily’s collection is important to any woman who is ready to explore the authenticity of a woman’s journey toward herself.”
— Peg Codding, author of Balance of Delicate Things

“These Chasms in the Earth is a lyrical and heady collection surging with truth and brawn that sheds light on the reality so many women live through when trying to find their way out of the shadows of abuse. It is a masterful weaving of the stories of two women who have fallen into their own chasms. Beautiful and haunting poetry revolving around Stone’s fraught early years of motherhood and gripping essays about Eleanor, her grandmother, who decided to build her home in the deepest part of the chasm. Readers fall with Stone down the side of the cliff with intense and raw imagery-drenched poems, then claw through the darkest mud—sticky line after sticky line filling the pages. Readers see the dirt under Stone’s fingernails as she strives to climb out, to free herself and her daughters. Finally, you wipe the tears of joy off your face, catching your breath again as you are led up and out with encouragement seeping through each line, like a sunrise after a long night. These Chasms in the Earth is a journey that balances horror and elegance, fear and bravery, injustice and the fight for what’s right. Ultimately, Stone shows readers how a woman can fall into the hardest depths but truly pick herself back up and want to help others, who have also fallen, find their strength to heal.
—Marissa Forbes, author of Surviving Peter Pan and Brief & Bleeding Margins

Contact the host of Book Release: These Chasms in the Earth by Cecily Stone