Poetry Collections
I. giraffe press 2026
BEFORE & AFTERGLOWS
Before & Afterglows is a poetry collection that pays homage to celestial light, but also to those who carry, share, and inspire it. There are poems about Shakespeare, Tupac, Cinderella, and Sara Bareilles; celebrations of love and remembrances of loss; shout-outs to artists and activists. These poems study sunlight breaking through clouds, starlight from an island with Pablo Neruda, and the dark purple midnight of self-reflection.
praise for Before & Afterglows
“In Before & Afterglows, Dana Kinsey grants us permission to be both grounded & emboldened, feminist & romantic, heavyhearted & delighted. Divided into three sections named after the phases of profound observations of the natural, personal, & political worlds. Like boats that feel their blessings, like miracles behind curtains, Dana Kinsey’s poems buoy us & invite us to be fully human. They remind us to pay attention-to recognize what connects us to one another & to the world around us. For in this museum for unfinished art, are we not all masterpieces of possibility?”
-Joan Kwon Glass, author of “Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms”
I. giraffe press 2022
MIXTAPE VENUS
Mixtape Venus is a poetry chapbook that explores the many roles that women play and the notion that every aspect of our lives requires patience, endurance, and love if our lives are to benefit others. The inspiration to live with passion and hope often comes in the form of music. Melodies and lyrics haunt and lift us, enchant and revive us, compel us to define and redefine ourselves in myriad ways in an ever-changing world.
praise for Mixtape Venus
“Mixtape Venus dances, shouts, sings and weeps. It’s a stunning record collection, I mean, poetry collection. These poems dream of “spooning with Botticelli,” telling “the kindest lie,” and admiring a “Student Who Cried for the Creature in Frankenstein.” This is Nina Simone, Swingline Staplers, and a “Raspberry Beret.” This is a dance party with a jubilant Gwendolyn Brooks, a rent party with Venus and Eve busting loose. These poems don’t just sing. They make it impossible to even sit still. Dana Kinsey, whose poems deserve a wide readership, is conductor, lead singer, record producer, and goddess. Here, she is one of our most able poets, making us shimmy, juke, and cry at the same time.”
-Joseph Ross, Author of Ache and Raising King
“These poems leap off the page and dance in the imagination, scattering perfumed words, so fully present that it’s easy to feel the ache of the speaker’s shoulders, the muscle strain lifting weights, her stretch and limber. Even in their pure physical presence, these poems are full of gentle wisdom often told by a speaker who is alone in their day-to-day life, baking a pie, awake in the middle of the night, following her GPS to a dive bar. Yet, she’s not truly alone, since the poet enters into direct conversation with the music Siri plays while she works, and many poets from our paean of poet-goddesses – Dickinson, Clifton, Angelou. Kinsey artfully invites us into each of these resonant moments, familiar comforts, all the more magical in her telling. What a comfort to keep company with the kindred goddesses of every day hours in these pages! This is the sort of mixtape you’ll want to listen to again and again.”
–Sarah Ann Winn, Author of “Alma Almanac,” Winner of the Barrow Street Book Prize