Arachnid Verve, Shauna’s debut poetry collection, is out from Mongrel Empire Press.
In her first collection of poems, Shauna Osborn focuses on the acrobatic nature of the genred and gendered multilingual lifestyles found in the Southwest. These are poems of movement and balance—searching for equilibrium between the mundane, utilitarian elements of working class life and the flourishes of color and spice inherent to artist expression. Individual poem inspirations run the gamut–from Aztec gods, dredging machines, Judd Nelson, punk rock bands, and Zora Neale Hurston. The collection also code switches between three different languages: Spanish, English, and Numu tekwapu (Comanche) because Southwestern life is not lived in a single language.
Praise
Finalist for an Oklahoma Book Award.
Featured on Sundress’ Wardrobe Best Dressed.
“Osborn has a muscular, grown woman style of writing that speaks to me. These poems work hard, they sweat, they have unreasonable relatives, they wear jeans and old boots, they aspire, they read widely and they bleed. This book is an antidote. In a world moment where so many women ask to be allowed to speak, these poems stand, feet planted, in the very center of territory they know is theirs.” Kim Shuck for Transmotion
“Drawing threads of Comanche, Spanish, and Oklahoma culture into one eclectic tapestry, Shauna Osborn delivers a spellbinding collection in Arachnid Verve. Populated with memories that are both intimate to the writer and universally applicable, Osborn grapples with issues of gender, sexuality, and identity with equal measures of humor, anger, and grit.” World Literature Today
“So Arachnid Verve is a book about audience, about community and context. But it is also about much more. It is about tenderness and violence, love and fear, myth and legend and the stories we live by.” Lynn Domina for Kenyon Review Online
Purchase
Arachnid Verve is available through Shauna’s online store, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Mongrel Empire Press, and Powells.
Press Kit
Arachnid Verve Press Kit (includes high resolution photos, bio, and press release for book)
Shauna Osborn 