Yield the Ghost

The thread of life is believed to predetermine each individual’s fate at birth, its chord ties these poems together.Yield the Ghost is a collection that examines mortality, lineage, and spirituality. A loose narrative begins before a traumatic birth, follows the speaker’s experience working in death care, and ends with the unknown. Her relationship with a bedridden mother is explored through an always evolving perception of loss. In the funeral industry, every movement is behind closed doors out of respect for the living. However, this stigmatization enhances fear of death. The included poems address a repressed intimacy with grief, aiming to illuminate that which separates the living and the lost. They divulge stories belonging to the deceased, told from their perspectives and the author’s own. At its core, the collection is about experiencing the world with gratitude despite loss and a burdened childhood. Yield the Ghost derives inspiration from the couplet and is tethered by an always present question of faith and destiny.