“In Good Mother Lizard, we encounter visceral poems written with a sharp precision and urgent transparency. Through these introspective yet accessible poems we empathize with the speaker’s sense of isolation, yet a fierce integrity of conscience also shines through. “I close my eyes. / Fall / as a / wet word / into the Namib desert,” writes Alletson in her dazzling debut collection. These are candid, vital poems which blaze through our eyes into our conscience, penetrating the landscape of our souls.”
— JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ, NEA Fellow and author of The Fire Eater
"Lisa Alletson writes as an archaeologist guide in twenty-seven stunning, often-surreal poems that feature unfolding life layers. Her mother tongue (and mother lizard) is authentic and honest throughout. In this award-winning debut collection, Alletson creates an unflinching, sensory field guide slash diary. Each poem entry is infused with her memorable imagination: a girl with quilted hands, cold planets in a throat, a dress and girl that are shadows, a rogue cotton sycophant, fog beetle performing a handstand, blue moth night brushed with sleeping pills, thrum and ashes.”
—AMY BARNES, author of Mother Figures and Ambrotypes
Good Mother Lizard doesn't back down from the challenges of motherhood, mental health issues, or the death of a sister and father. Instead, Lisa Alletson faces them head-on. Even when they "burn open her eyes" revealing "freckles are holes" and DNA is worn "like a casualty" she still savors how an apricot's stone is "tangled like jazz." For Lisa, finding beauty, no matter how devastating, is an act of defiant survival.
TINA MOZELLE BRAZIEL, Philip Levine prize-winner for Known by Salt
Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and England, and now lives in Toronto. Her debut chapbook, Good Mother Lizard, won the Headlight Review 2022 chapbook poetry prize, and is included on The Lonely Crowd's 'Books of the Year’ list. Lisa’s writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best MicroFiction. Her words have been published in New Ohio Review, Crab Creek Review, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Typehouse Magazine, Emerge Journal, among others. To read more of her published work, visit her website.
“In Good Mother Lizard, we encounter visceral poems written with a sharp precision and urgent transparency. Through these introspective yet accessible poems we empathize with the speaker’s sense of isolation, yet a fierce integrity of conscience also shines through. “I close my eyes. / Fall / as a / wet word / into the Namib desert,” writes Alletson in her dazzling debut collection. These are candid, vital poems which blaze through our eyes into our conscience, penetrating the landscape of our souls.”
— JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ, NEA Fellow and author of The Fire Eater
"Lisa Alletson writes as an archaeologist guide in twenty-seven stunning, often-surreal poems that feature unfolding life layers. Her mother tongue (and mother lizard) is authentic and honest throughout. In this award-winning debut collection, Alletson creates an unflinching, sensory field guide slash diary. Each poem entry is infused with her memorable imagination: a girl with quilted hands, cold planets in a throat, a dress and girl that are shadows, a rogue cotton sycophant, fog beetle performing a handstand, blue moth night brushed with sleeping pills, thrum and ashes.”
—AMY BARNES, author of Mother Figures and Ambrotypes
Good Mother Lizard doesn't back down from the challenges of motherhood, mental health issues, or the death of a sister and father. Instead, Lisa Alletson faces them head-on. Even when they "burn open her eyes" revealing "freckles are holes" and DNA is worn "like a casualty" she still savors how an apricot's stone is "tangled like jazz." For Lisa, finding beauty, no matter how devastating, is an act of defiant survival.
TINA MOZELLE BRAZIEL, Philip Levine prize-winner for Known by Salt
Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and England, and now lives in Toronto. Her debut chapbook, Good Mother Lizard, won the Headlight Review 2022 chapbook poetry prize, and is included on The Lonely Crowd's 'Books of the Year’ list. Lisa’s writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best MicroFiction. Her words have been published in New Ohio Review, Crab Creek Review, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Typehouse Magazine, Emerge Journal, among others. To read more of her published work, visit her website.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.
Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world.
