“Life After Rugby,” the first book-length poetry collection by Eileen G’Sell, was published in December by Gold Wake Press. G’Sell is a lecturer in writing and in the Prison Education Project in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The volume collects more than 50 poems, several of which previously appeared in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly and other journals.
A features editor for The Rumpus, G’Sell writes frequently for Salon, Vice, Alive and The Common Reader, among many others. Her chapbooks “Portrait of My Ex With Giant Burritto” (2015) and “Euphoria Takes One for the Team” (2013) are available from BOAAT Press and Dancing Girl Press, respectively. In 2013, she was awarded the American Literary Review prize for poetry.
For more information, visit goldwake.com or follow G’Sell on Twitter.
***
I HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED
FOR THE CLOSET
that was filled with birds, silt, gloves,
and the dullness of pedals. My heart was clean
from the very first. My hands were ready
and opened like gifts. In sleep, the sound of hours rushed
across the street to ravish me.
I have made light of many things
and that’s why we can see in here.