In this electrifying debut poetry collection, a critically acclaimed award-winning talent explores a wide range of emotions, from anxiety to ecstasy reflecting the moon's phases, from Waning Gibbous to Full.

Both intimate and intricately structured Tramaine Suubi’s remarkable work is inspired by the moon—its phases’ effects on water, the Earth, and our bodies. Phases relishes in the beauty of change, even that caused by heartbreak. Suubi’s refreshing, vulnerable verse begs to be underlined, memorized, and shared; each of her poems operate as love letters to the cyclical healing that occurs in nature, in our bodies, and in the bodies that have come before us.

Tramaine Suubi is a multilingual writer from Kampala, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her forthcoming debut is a full-length poetry collection titled phases, which will be published in January 2025. Her forthcoming second book is also a full-length poetry collection titled stages, which will be published in January 2026. Both books will be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Erica Dawson is the author of three books of poetry: When Rap Spoke Straight to God (Tin House, 2018), winner of the 2018 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Poetry; The Small Blades Hurt (Measure Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Poets’ Prize, and Big-Eyed Afraid (Waywiser Press, 2007), winner of the 2006 Anthony Hecht Prize. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2008, 2012, and 2015, Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poets Now, and American Society: What Poets See. Her prose has appeared in The Rumpus. She has been featured on PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times Magazine, and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Erica holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University, an MFA from Ohio State University, and a PhD from University of Cincinnati. She’s taught workshops and seminars at the Tin House Workshop, the Florida Literary Arts Coalition’s Other Words Conference, St. Leo University’s Sandhill Writers Retreat, and the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon. She was an associate professor at the University of Tampa.