We Were More Than Kindling

A powerful debut chapbook by poet Jessica Morey-Collins.
Entitlement is a hell of a drug. The load-bearing grifts, propping up a culture of dominance, range from the canonized hierarchies that inform interpersonal and social violence, to the ecological and economic abuses of extractive resource management and disaster capitalism. WE WERE MORE THAN KINDLING is a confessional account of the author's navigation of these systems, a collection of poems that endeavors to make meaning where the personal and political collide. We follow the speaker's reckoning of an intimate history of persistent sexualization and consent violation with the disillusion of coming of age in an era when abuse of power is a feature, not a bug. This collection builds momentum through a cynical premise, following its speaker's defiant claim-staking over their own body, agency, and pleasure.