Remaking by KM Kramer

The poems in KM Kramer’s Remaking wear down trauma until the edges “soften into sea glass.” These poems are not just about healing—they are healing, embodying care in both their language and forms. Kramer isn’t afraid to get close to pain—these poems reveal “yellow-brown/patches of scabs. Hot pink where one/has fallen off” and “My chest: the mortar/where the pestle of worry/presses.” After inviting the reader into the intimacies of suffering, Kramer then models paths to recovery: Medusa pressing back against Athena’s gaslighting; a mother empowering her son who has autism; Giselle Pellico persecuting her abusers; Circe’s witchcraft signaling “we need not be alone/on our own island.” Formally, the Shape Series poems liberate through form, dismantling linear narratives in favor of multiplicity and autonomy. The words of Remaking may stay on the page, but their powers soar far beyond it, just like resilient “seagulls manage to break free from the frame.” 

–Allison Pitinii Davis, author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk