alicia swain

“In Alicia Swain’s debut poetry collection, a woman’s voice calls out of the darkness. With intelligence and precision she speaks—of her own trauma, yes, but also of the earth’s, of our society’s, of womankind’s. Deft with metaphor and lyricism, Swain’s poems conjure figures of fierce resolve, speaking against silence with courage. These poems are the sound of a soul pouring forth in order to make and remake a world. A moving first book.”

“In language both fresh and fierce, Alicia Swain’s debut poetry collection Steel Slides and Yellow Walls takes the reader on a journey of violent revolution and evolution, a journey toward a young woman’s rebirth after years of nearly cracking, nearly drowning. Our guide is a speaker who wrestles, challenges, talks back, and sometimes asks disturbing and ultimately unanswerable questions. These poems offer images of chilling transgressions, ask us to confront uncomfortable memories, witness bodies slammed, bumped, bruised, crushed, and violated.

“Alicia Swain refuses to apply ‘lipstick / to beautify the ugliest experiences’ (as she writes in ‘6 AM’). These poems sugar-coat nothing. And yet the collection’s final poem, ‘Progress,’ offers a lovely coda, tells us ‘the death / of one purpose can be as beautiful as a birth’ and offers hopeful imagery (‘an aroma like red cedar, aged pine / desperate to embark on a new stage of life.’) These poems show a writer learning about true love in all its forms, most notably self-love. They leave both speaker and reader moved and restored.”

“‘The harbored rage is a necessity.’ These six words from Swain’s ‘Breaking Silence’ piece awaiting inside will be one of the many phrases that cling to your brain after reading her latest work, Steel Slides and Yellow Walls. It is a liberating, empowering and inspiring read in these dark, uncertain times we face as a society. Swain beautifully and intricately weaves stories of pain, anguish, hope, sacrifice and distrust into her prose, which is as witty and biting as it is heartbreaking and raw. From bodily autonomy to a parent’s love to abuse and what it means to be a woman facing the systems built against them in today’s world—no stone is left unturned. The brevity in each poem speaks volumes, each stanza strung together effortlessly. She takes you on a journey that ends in freedom, clarity and healing. But not before igniting a fire in you that has burned in her for some time.”

“Alicia Swain’s Steel Slides and Yellow Walls is an emotionally powerful book of poetry that is balanced between brutal and beautiful. The evocative language used throughout the book pulls the reader in, making each poem more of a visceral experience than a simple reading. That being said, Swain’s perspective is both approachable and accessible through the common language of emotion woven through her writing. We are not just observers of her perspective but are actively thrown into the middle of it.”