Regret or Something More Animal

Heather Bell has been published in numerous literary magazines and journals. She won the 2009 New Letters Prize and in the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, her chapbook “Kill the Dogs” was selected and published. She lives on Oswego, NY with her grizzly bear Dan, 4 human children and 1 prairie dog. She is an assistant teacher in a Montessori school and loves eating rye bread. Email her at schimelhr@gmail.com Follow her on IG @bellhr

"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