Empty Bowl, paperback Publication Date: May 26, 2026 Publisher Marketing: In Reconciliations, Mistee St. Clair’s debut poetry collection, she explores the universal condition of grief. Of Tanana Athabaskan descent, St. Clair writes of the loss of a parent, first through adoption and the cultural and ancestral loss that follows, and then, in a powerful sequence of poems, of the loss of her birth father to addiction and death. She writes of the challenges of mothering her children as they become adults and of finding a new identity as her marriage ends. In facing these losses, she learns that reconciliation begins with connections: with herself, her dead father, her children, her partner, and the world. Tinged with the bittersweet, grounded in place—in poems that range in length, style, and subject—the poet’s voice is clear. These brave, honest poems don’t skim the surface; they find deeper meaning, believing in love, hope, and renewal, ultimately arriving at their own spirituality, seeing life through the twin lenses of curiosity and love, even in the midst of perpetual rain.
