Overview

Poetry. Historical Romance. 96 pages, paperback, 8.5"" x 6"", $16. ISBN: 979-8-9914048-6-0 Release date: May 26, 2026 It's 1890. When The Woman takes a job at a one-room schoolhouse in Flagstaff, AZ, she finds that the landscape is the real teacher. In this genre-busting collection from poet, fiction author, and career educator Erin Armstrong, follow The Woman as she takes and leaves lovers, passes in and out of memory, and travels steam trains across the high desert, its night sky, and time and space. This book holds ponderosa pines and celestial events, quick encounters of love and longing, and the joyful companionship of the self.

Full Product Details

9798991404860

Table of Contents

Reviews

""A narrative in verse, Decoupled unfolds the erotic life of The Woman as she travels through the West. Structured as a dramatic work, the collection employs potent Archetypes, each character offering The Woman a space to grapple with and enact desire. ""The Dancer, The Astronomer, The Cartographer, and The Engineer / each contain a cargo of truth; / a flash of a story...the touch of each man's lips on her belly; / the taste and flavor of each man."" These characters swirl around each other in continuous motion-the train, the dance, the stars, the breath. Under this motion quieter questions unfold, addressing the vulnerability of memory and of remembering: ""she looks from man to man, from memory to memory, and leaves articles of herself with each."" Decoupled skillfully grapples with questions of desire and mind, asking Where can the erotic take you? Come find out."" Rebecca Morton, author of Clown (Tupelo Press) To read Decoupled is to link memory to mystery, to reach for stars that change their shape with every switch of railway track. We accompany a woman's journey by train through reminiscence as she links lovers to the fractured pieces of her former selves. ""The train / of desire / starts down the tracks / collecting: lips, eyes, hips."" Armstrong encourages readers to step off in order to immediately step on again, into another car, yearning for yet another beloved. Kalehua Kim, author of Mele (Trio House Press) Decoupled invites readers into a raw and sensorial exploration of an independent woman navigating desire. A woman deemed ]lost wanders the rails, experiencing various men along the way. Is she dreaming from the confines of her schoolhouse, or has she jumped aboard the newly-laid rail? Moving through the complexities of obsession, these poems navigate the emotional journey of longing for something beyond the self. Laura Titzer, Author of Omissions

Author Information

Erin Armstrong's (she/her) work has appeared in several literary magazines, including Mom Egg Review, seedfall, Anodyne Magazine, Indy Correspondent, Fiction Southeast, Black Heart Magazine, Lost Magazine, The Museum of Americana: a literary review, and more. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona. She lives in Shoreline, Washington. More of her work can be found at www.erinarmstrong.org

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