pray me stay eager
pray me stay eager
Ellen Doré Watson
2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist
“…[an] exuberant poetry collection…”
—The New York Times Book Review
January 2018
ISBN: 9781938584688
Available in both print and digital formats.
Ellen Doré Watson directs the Poetry Center at Smith College and serves as poetry editor for The Massachusetts Review. She is the author of four books of poems, including two from Alice James, We Live in Bodies and Ladder Music, winner of the New England/New York Award. Her most recent collection, This Sharpening, was published by Tupelo Press. Individual poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including The American Poetry Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. She was named by Library Journal one of “24 Poets for the 21st Century.” Among her other honors are a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant, a Rona Jaffe Writers Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. She has translated a dozen books from the Portuguese, including The Alphabet in the Park, the selected poems of Brazilian Adélia Prado (Wesleyan University Press).
“This space is left empty to create a white space. To create a white separation block in these individual book pages, add a Quote Block”
Additional Praise:
“Watson’s implementation of poetic form is as diverse as the range of experiences she explores…”
—Rain Taxi Review of Books
“Watson writes, ‘This is not strictly a story’—and she’s right, it isn’t. These poems are musical meditations on what cannot be narrated, but must be prayed or sung. . .”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ellen Doré Watson gives us the gift of a healthy dose of life in pray me stay eager, a book that lifts language up and invites it to its own self-investigation. . . This is a taut and wise collection, bustling with inventiveness and celebration of wonder. The craft is impeccable, the inner vision revelatory, and the humor affirming, the kind of courage we so need.”
—Afaa Michael Weaver
“This space is left empty to create a white space. To create a white separation block in these individual book pages, add a Quote Block”
More by Ellen Doré Watson:
“This space is left empty to create a white space. To create a white separation block in these individual book pages, add a Quote Block”
Featured:
Kelly Grace Thomas
"Future Tense is a thoughtful, beautiful meditation on the slow, aching, and sometimes miraculous state of intertwined grief—in a manner that is not only about sadness, but also, through its rich imagery and world-building, asks a reader to consider what they love, what they have, perhaps, taken for granted, and how to adjust the arc of their own universe."
—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year
"Future Tense is memoir-in-verse gifting us ample permutations of longing. Kelly Grace Thomas charts the overlap (both temporal and metaphorical) of her mother’s death and trying for a child. True to the title, tension lights up this collection. In eclectic structures, whether careful tercets or sprawling fragments, Thomas ricochets between loss and desire until they blend. When it comes to the myriad expectations and stigmas placed on the infertile body, Thomas is willing to lay so much bare for us, unflinchingly charting desperation and the cost of wanting."
—Shira Erlichman, author of Odes to Lithium
October 2026
ISBN: 9781967149049
Also available on Bookshop.