Description

Finalist, The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2026

The Gut Is an Aquarium of Odd Sea Creatures

by Susan Vespoli

The Gut Is an Aquarium of Odd Sea Creatures was written in the face of the poet’s second cancer diagnosis, 20+ years after the first one. What does it feel like? What can be learned? How can one make peace with even this? Susan Vespoli’s collection shares all this and more, with her trademark authenticity, fierceness, and wit.

 

Early Praise

I’m a fan of Susan Vespoli’s poetry, both for its unblinking look at whatever fresh hell life serves up, and how she confronts it with both vulnerability and a raised middle finger. In her new chapbook, The Gut is an Aquarium of Odd Sea Creatures, the latest fresh hell is the recurrence of cancer after a 23-year remission. The reader sits beside her in hospital parking lots, waiting rooms, and curtained chemo cubicles. It’s all there— the fear, the exhaustion, and the anger—but through Vespoli’s particular lens, there’s laugh-out-loud humor and sensuality, too. The poems—intimate, fierce, frank and funny—do what Vespoli suggests her mother does in “Dear Question,” say YES, this IS our life, so lean in.

 —TINA BARRY, author of I Tell Henrietta

Susan Vespoli’s unsparingly clear-eyed chapbook, The Gut is an Aquarium of Odd Sea Creatures, written in the wake of a second cancer diagnosis following a decades-long remission, should be in every oncology waiting room in the country, and read by anyone whose family has been hit with the devastating news that land[s] in [the] gut like a boot. The poems follow Vespoli through the maze of cords, beeps, [and] drips as she navigates both the invasive rigors of clinical treatment and the tender landscape of connection with a partner who becomes not only a companion through the staggering onslaught of appointments but also a place to lean into…and melt. Vespoli’s words are unflinching and precise, detailing the minute geographies of the cancer care center and her multivarious compatriots in treatment, united by blood draws, imaging tests, and the vagaries of prognosis. But a surprising and life-affirming humor crackles through the collection and flourish[es] like hope, and Vespoli delivers a hard-won message not just of resilience, but of the power of wip[ing] up all that’s lost and facing the world again to live and breathe in every thing. I found myself by equal turns astonished, humbled, moved, and transported as I read, pulling for good news of course, but perhaps more importantly, called to the persistent invitation of my own life: Breathe. Let go of fear. Lean in.

—MAYA STEIN, Poet Laureate Emerita, Belfast, Maine, author of Margin Release

Susan Vespoli’s newest collection offers gritty, generous insight into the details of living with a second cancer diagnosis—the contrast dye, inconsiderate comments, the thin cotton gowns, the clusterfuck of obstacles, the chill of the ER. Here she shares the kaleidoscope of fear, anger, grief, connection and moments of acceptance when we can breathe in every thing. I’m always grateful for the truth tellers like Susan who not only meet the moments that feel unmeetable, but then write about them with authentic ferocity. As she writes, None of us really know how it feels to be each other, but because of books such as this one, when we face our most difficult, vulnerable chapters, we know we are not alone.

—ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER, author of The Wonderment, host of The Poetic Path

About the Author

Susan Vespoli believes in the power of writing to heal and illuminate. She lives in Phoenix with a chiweenie named after Frida Kahlo. She is the author of four poetry collections and teaches online writing classes for 27Powers.org and writers.com. Her work has been published at ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, Rattle, Anti-Heroin Chic, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots.

website: SusanVespoli.com