{"product_id":"the-next-syllable-kris-wilson-slack-9780965451840","title":"The Next Syllable: An Origin In Words","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Newest Syllable\u003c\/em\u003e is an autobiography told entirely in poems, which is to say it is a book about the self as something that takes a lifetime to excavate rather than a thing you simply are. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFifty poems move through the span of one woman's life, from before birth to the present day, asking the same question at every age: what is real about me, and what is artifice?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe answer keeps changing. That is the point. Maybe that is always the point of poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a voice that runs through this collection like a thread you don't quite see until you're holding the end of it. It calls the speaker \u003cem\u003elittle one\u003c\/em\u003e. It says \u003cem\u003enot yet\u003c\/em\u003e in the early years, and \u003cem\u003enow\u003c\/em\u003e at the threshold of adulthood, and finally, in the later poems, something more like \u003cem\u003esoon\u003c\/em\u003e. By the time the reader recognizes the voice, they may also recognize it as their own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe poems move through childhood shaped by chaos and the library as escape, through the particular loneliness of growing up gifted and hungry in a house that couldn't hold either, through first loves and first losses, through the long unraveling of an identity built from borrowed pieces, through the building of something sturdier from the rubble. There is a direct encounter with God at a party. There is the strange dignity of deathbed scenes. There is the moment a woman steps into a house that is entirely her own. There is the slow, hard-won arrival at solitude as something other than loss.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe later poems do not resolve into certainty. They resolve into comfort with uncertainty, which is a different and more durable thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Newest Syllable\u003c\/em\u003e is for anyone who has felt the distance between who they were taught to be and who they actually are, and who is still, at whatever age, in the act of closing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Kris Wilson-Slack\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0965451844\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780965451840\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Alternate Way Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 126\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.39lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.27d","brand":"Kris Wilson-Slack","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49148651733247,"sku":"9780965451840","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-next-syllable-kris-wilson-slack-9780965451840","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}