Regret or Something More Animal

"The only thing lonelier than being alone is loving the wrong person. Bell’s collection taps into that space, that lack of space, the power of love to spay. When it turns to hate, we might wonder whether or not it was really love in the first place, and we might die wondering. But Regret or Something More Animal gives us hope for the wounded dove, all swan songs aside, and the opportunity to reclaim our hearts and minds. “I am reminded that women writers can eat you alive,” says Bell, and I, too, am reminded."
—Kim Vodicka, author of The Elvis Machine
"Heather Bell’s Regret or Something More Animal devastates the reader with a field guide to the dissolution of marriage and new life in its shadow. Her poems trace the boundaries of maternal guilt, sexual violence, and love, tenderly exposing their bones in fresh metaphors and bright images. Airy and organic, Bell’s phrases invite the reader into a world haunted by birds, frogs and willows, and punctuated with cigarettes, suicide and real trauma. All the while, Bell sings us through the pain of failure and fear in romance and wings us toward survival’s questions about what it takes to love the shattered self before it is mended."
—Daphne Maysonet, Co-Founder of The Corner Club Press
"The contemplation of Regret or Something More Animal creates a liminal space, where the speaker becomes more aware of the horror the heart endures, specifically theirs, in an attempt to re-define what love is & re-mend that which has been contorted by years of abuse. The very first line opens the entire premise of this book with, “What’s interesting about the / human heart is the horror of it,” examining the wearing lacerations the heart endures, while preparing us [readers] for a metaphorical surgery that must remove the heart & disembowel it, in order to place the pieces back together. But, no matter what, it will never be the same as it was. Love will never be the same (each time). In Regret or Something More Animal Heather journeys through the heart’s many ventricles, analyzing the architecture of the effects of abusive love & blissful love, & everything in between. The speaker says, “A wound can’t close itself…” & so they attempt to find some suture through experience & re-definition, with the journey itself becoming the true destination."
—Courtney Leigh, author of the unrequited <3<3 of red riding hood & her lycan lover (Dancing Girl Press, 2016)
“Bell’s poems not only connect they leave teeth marks and you will savor each line that she tattoos around your skin.”
—Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, author, of La Belle Ajar
“Heather Bell takes out the wedding dress and feeds it to the wood chipper, with grace and without any traces of mascara running down her face. Bell asks the question we all weep over: how will I ever love again? and then takes us from the breakdown to the breakthrough. “I step back quickly as you do when a caged thing moves,” Bell writes; be ready to stay quick on your feet.”
—Jeanette Powers, author of Dandylion Riot