A gripping and candid collection on womanhood, marriage, and the transformation of identity.

In her fourth collection of poems, Amber Campbell unpacks the burdens of womanhood within societal confines and how they shape the roles women take on throughout life. From the struggle of balancing the feminine and masculine energies to achieving the epiphanic relief of trusting in who you've finally become, The Woman I Hold Dear is a fluid journey of womanhood from childhood to old age.

Even the titles we bestow upon ourselves in the name of belonging fall flat when we fail to encapsulate how they fit us, instead focusing only on how we contort to fit others' views. "Did you love my poetry? / Or did you love that a piece / of me would always be near?" Campbell asks. What is left when the identity we forge becomes a caricature for others to place us neatly into boxes?

Womanhood is a balancing act of energies and identities, of what we love and what we despise, even if that very thing is who we let ourselves become when we stopped looking.