OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE: February 15, 2021

HYPNIC JERK, a stunning first chapbook of poetry by Megan Freshley, will make the reader laugh out loud and gasp in astonishment in the same line. In stark, slicing free-verse, Freshley summons the epic and mythic, barbie dream houses, hypnotism, and a powerful grief. These darkly funny poems have a lagoon of intense honesty lurking beneath them, and when you emerge from its pages, you won’t be the same.

Megan Freshley is a queer poet and musician from Cincinnati living in Portland, OR. She is a graduate of Antioch College, the Esalen Institute, and the MFA program at Portland State University. Her poems and essays have appeared in Portland Review, Stay Wild, Witch Craft Magazine, 1001, Old Pal, and others. She was a winner of the 2013 Academy of American Poets Prize and the 2014 Orlo Bear Deluxe Judge’s award from Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen. Hypnic Jerk is her first collection.