FROM THE VANISHING OF CAMILLE CLAUDEL (II) (The A3 Press, 2021)
Winner, The A3 Press Chapbook Prize
Read an excerpt
See it in action
Purchase at The A3 Press
GENDER/GENRE (Ravenna Press, 2020)
from my forthcoming book, my dissertation, It’s Not a Lonely World: A Memoir on the Edge (Trembling Pillow Press, 2022)
Read my dissertation abstract here
Purchase at Ravenna Press
RELIEF MAP (C&R Press, 2017)
Winner, Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Prize
Named a “New in September” Book by Lambda Literary
Read an excerpt
Purchase at C&R Press and Amazon
“The poems in Relief Map explore the dynamic landscape of abiding love—that territory that is ‘forever unchartered’ and yet ‘familiar as your own face and hands.’ Bertram locates the spirit in the body and the body, the human animal, in the natural world. The language of the poems, like the lovers who inhabit them, is ‘swashbuckling & radiant’ and leads us through, and beyond, ‘the lonesome country of the self.’”—Grace Bauer, author of The Women At The Well and Mean/Time
“That oft-traversed and never-understood terrain of the beloved, of desire. Bertram asks us to trace our hands over the everyday and see it anew, so that we may marvel at it: ‘To light one another from within & stare dumbstruck at the glow.’ This collection, contemplative and shot through with longing, is a bright burning thing reminding us of the tenuousness and beauty inherent to intimacy.”—Katie Schmid, author of forget me / hit me / let me drink great quantities of clear, evil liquor
FROM THE VANISHING OF CAMILLE CLAUDEL (Seven Kitchens Press, 2016)
Read an excerpt
Purchase at Seven Kitchens Press
MEMENTO MORI (Dancing Girl Press, 2014)
Listen to an excerpt
Purchase at Dancing Girl Press
Cover photograph by the author
“we can, with the right mix of wisdom, attention, and grace, make of our lives Erin Bertram’s quiet ‘beauty unhinged.’ The lyric meditations of this collection read like prayer, each rooted in fierce and open-hearted attention, each full of longing and ‘words to utter as a stay against the dark.’ I want to quote line after line”—Rebecca Wee, author of Uncertain Grace
WHERE THE WIND BENDS BACKWARDS (918 Studio Press, 2014)
Co-authored with Ryan Collins
Out of print
“fused together with tone and imagery. A sense of place, of home, is felt at once but also a sense of loneliness.”—Sarah Lilius, author of What Becomes Within and The Heart Factory
CLOSE YOUR EYES, LOOK AT ME (Gold Wake Press, 2011)
Micro-chapbook
Cover photograph by Kelvin Mason
Out of print
WINDFALL (Lettre Sauvage, 2010)
Winner, Lettre Sauvage Chapbook Prize
Purchase at Lettre Sauvage
Cover art by John Charles Shippey
“Spring-blown & ecstatic, the avid speech of Erin Bertram’s poems awakens spirit to its core.”—Mark Irwin, contest judge
INLAND SEA (Seven Kitchens Press, 2009)
Winner, Robin Becker Chapbook Prize
Purchase at Seven Kitchens Press
Cover photograph by Kris Sanford
“filled with beautiful disconnects, startling juxtapositions of language and image, and a loping, mournful grace.”—Ruth L. Schwartz, contest judge
THE URGE TO BELIEVE IS STRONGER THAN BELIEF ITSELF (Cherry Pie Press, 2008)
Named a “Recent and Recommended Book” by Valparaiso Poetry Review
Read an excerpt
Cover photograph by the author
Out of print
“Erin Bertram’s book demonstrates a poet at high power making use of language, form, and the material of the text to render experience in three registers—physical, psychological, metaphysical—in the manner of lived human experience. The framework, the aesthetics, are evident, but as is true with the best expressive writing in any genre, the aesthetics disappear behind the profound experience of the text.”—Bill Scalia, Galatea Resurrects
“safety can be found in a name, gleaned from the seeming order of definition (whether from a dictionary or medical pamphlet) even when faced with the treachery of meaning. From the opening lines of Rilke to the book’s final words, the solid actuality of language belies our frankly human experience of loss and its echo, pain. In such a world, where we are always reaching, even our mother’s breasts bear the fragility of existence. In such a world, ‘any change is worth noting.’”—Erin Quick, Left Bank Books
“Seen through the lens of language, relationship is stronger than illness. Bertram’s poetry is a quiet crescendo of love and attentiveness that connects and redefines whatever it touches.”—Rebecca Ellis, series editor
WISE RAVEN (Big Game Books, 2008)
Micro-chapbook
Out of print
“the power of persona is first seen as in a glass, darkly, but made all the more forceful by the shadows, and the unavoidable lightning.”—Maureen Thorson, series editor
THE MOST WILD, KINDLY GREEN (Achote Press, 2009)
Out of print
“I love the way Erin’s poem [“Beat Fast My Heart”] catapults the reader right into a disorienting, fragmentary narrative—my favorite kind—and alternates between short, halting statements and astonishing enjambments.”—Mary Biddinger, editor of Barn Owl Review
BODY OF WATER (Thorngate Road Press, 2007)
Winner, Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award
Cover photograph by the author
Out of print
“engenders a longing none of us can ignore and all of us recognize immediately, a longing beyond the physical, even beyond articulation in any language except, perhaps, the angels’.”—Jim Elledge, contest judge
“Body of Water is masterfully constructed by one of the most skilled poets I have read in a long time”—Bill Scalia, Galatea Resurrects
ALLUVIUM (Dancing Girl Press, 2007)
Read an excerpt
Purchase at Dancing Girl Press
Cover photograph by Kris Sanford
“Bertram’s poetry is darkly sparkling, adroit, well crafted, painterly, vital and sonically rapturous”—Karyna McGlynn, New Pages
“this volume demands more than a quick reading session from its readers—this is a book that commands our attention.”—Genevieve Kaplan, Galatea Resurrects
HERE, HUNGER (NeO Pepper Press, 2007)
Co-authored with Sarah Lilius
Out of print
Erin M. Bertram 