What the Body Already Knows

In this award-winning, debut poetry collection, K.E. Ogden turns our gaze to mapping grief as a transformative journey of resilience. Five poems in the collection have been honored, including "Mapping the Route," a winner of the 2022 Academy of American Poets Henri Coulette Memorial Prize and featured on the Academy of American Poets website. This first poem in the book explores the tension between our past nostalgia and longings and our present homes. In the midst of a father's love for his daughter, there are directions given. These poems are songs of devotion to "all the chaos and misery and hope that simmers . . . in the minds of people," as poet Jimmy Baca shared. There is mud and bird shit, there are bones and dead bodies, there are hot biscuits and a cat's torn ear, and shovels, and sawdust. These poems do offer comfort during tough times, a map for transcending grief and turning tragedy into gateways for metamorphosis. Ogden's poems invite you to make new worlds in changed landscapes, to see beauty in dark, shark-infested waters, and to find elation and joy in being alive.