Folks, I’ve seen the blurbs that are going on the back of the book and I’m humbled. I can’t thank José, Jason, and Amanda enough for their time, energy, and support. Here they are:

“What good is love if it does not see us? What good is a love song if it doesn’t make us dance? Megan Neville’s poems are unflinching in their observations of cruelty and tenderness alike. Rust Belt Love Song is still music, and Neville is a worthy artist—stretching ordinary moments to show all of the wonder, pain, and yes, love that exists just under the surface.”

—José Olivarez, Author of Citizen Illegal

 

“Megan Neville’s debut collection, Rust Belt Love Song, is more than poetry. It is a reckoning of home, but a home built out of many narratives pushing back against a world that is filled with ecological, emotional, and physical violences. Throughout this resistance, our speaker remains understanding, gentle. Megan Neville is a poet whose voice, whose language, whose tenacity on the page is one that we need in this moment.”

—Jason Harris, co-Editor-in-Chief of Barnhouse Journal

 

“Neville’s command of language moves us through her tour of the past. Though personal, these works pull us along and remind us of what we may have left behind, what we may go back to. Each poem breathes into the sag of the Midwest; Neville captures that truth “until weakness gives way/to freedom.” She writes the sway into her words, each line a new wave, a new gravity tugging us back home.”

—Amanda Stovicek, author of Space Spectacular