Poet Anna Barnes performing bloom // wilt

Anna Barnes, a Cincinnati, Ohio poet, announces the release of her second book, bloom // wilt, for adult poetry readers with interest in topics of gender, sexuality, feminism, matriarchy, and the war between nature and the manmade world. This 20-poem chapbook follows a character named Chrysanthemum on her journey as she is born in nature, begins to look longingly toward and then ventures into the shimmering city in the horizon, soon finds out that the city is not as beautiful as it seems from the outside, and is only able to return to her natural homeland by dying and being buried in the dirt. Chrysanthemum originated from a poem of the same name in Anna's first poetry book, Out of Ink and Ideas (2025).