Dressing in the Dark

DRESSING IN THE DARK (Lynx House Press; September 2025) is the fourth poetry

collection by award-winning poet and former Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken.

In this powerful new work, Flenniken confronts the moral and emotional complexities of recovery,

drawing from the speaker’s journey through breast cancer. Guided by memories of her mother and

her intertwined identities as a mother, daughter, and writer, she navigates the terrain of illness,

surgery, and healing. These poems become greater meditations on fear and mortality, touching on

the quiet struggle to find acceptance amid grief. This is a collection of beautifully structured and voiced poems.