Praise:

"Reading Nicole Callihan’s Aging is like walking a labyrinth: each poem takes the reader closer to the center of self-reflection before journeying back out into the world. This deeply meditative collection is grounded in the body—the ways it fails us and our shame—and the small joys of being alive. Though the poet asks, “What else can I offer,” ultimately she affirms, “This must be enough,” where enough is sometimes sufficient and sometimes too much. These poems do not promise a panacea for aging; they “tilt toward meaningfulness” and ask for reprieve."

–Emari DiGiorgio, author of Girl Torpedo and The Things a Body Might Become

"Nicole Callihan’s chapbook, Aging, takes the reader on an exquisite and magical journey. Her poems catch snippets of a life in motion, while repetition serves as an effective thread, connecting, unwrapping and surprising us along this journey. The mood of these poems is delightfully unpredictable. In a nod to aging, she tells us in one line “I keep wandering to graves” yet, a few lines down, in the same poem, Callihan shares, “I hope at least to keep my teeth” and I imagine the poet delivering this line to us deadpan. These poems are kaleidoscopes, each reading reveals a secret and unexpected nuance. Nature and family and musings on life and death all take center stage here. Callihan’s language is delicious. When she offers up the alliteration “I fickle and fume and finger the flowers” the reader can’t help but savor how her words and images roll off the tongue. She leaves us wanting more. Aging is a guidebook you will find yourself returning to again and again."

-JP Howard, author of SAY/MIRROR