Description
A careful study on estrangement and loss, The Price of a Small Hot Fire excavates the archetypal horrors of monstrous motherhood, from abandonment and unsteady reconciliation to the grave. Experimental and intimate, E.F. Schraeder’s collection gives voice to a semi-autobiographical examination of a griefscape from a queer lens.
This collection of poems is an emotional journey that will find readers clutching their hearts at both the subtle moments and those that cut like a knife. The raw feelings seep onto the pages, encompassing the vulnerability of open wounds, while at the same time cutting through a stone-like exterior to see the blood still inside. It’s not only a reading of poetry but an internal vibrating contemplation of the maternal relationship and how it molds us.
What They’re Saying
“E.F. Schraeder’s wonderful collection The Price of a Small Hot Fire is a gleaming poetic knife: strong, sharp, and heart-carving.”– Lucy A. Snyder, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Exposed Nerves
“Schraeder writes with teeth sharpened by decades of grit and despair; vicious and morose in equal measure.” – Anton Cancre, author of This Story Doesn’t End the Way We Want All the Time
“…a séance of grief and trauma where readers are invited to witness a conversation between mother and daughter, stranger and caretaker, ghost and necromancer. Wounds are uncovered, edges are no longer hidden; E.F. Schraeder tills soil and flesh for seeds of love and forgiveness to take root and bloom.”– Grace R. Reynolds, author of The Lies We Weave and Lady of The House
“Frankenstein serves as a touchpoint in these poems written from the perspective of one who feels both monster-made and a monster, made.”—Lisa M. Bradley