Assembling the olympus

The poems in this manuscript attempt to build, reconstruct, and understand a pieced-together history of becoming a woman, of the memories and relationships that assemble into a life. My themes wade between loss, longing, and finding strength where some part of the speaker has been taken. Using four sections, I’ve divided common-thread free verse poems into conversations that speak to one another and speak alone. The title poem aims to capture the steady compiling of experiences that create an “Olympus” of what it means to be a daughter, a woman, a lover, and what it takes to create meaning that shifts out of reach, rearranging itself into something entirely new each time it is considered.