Intimate, urgent, and relentlessly inventive, the poems in Ghostlit reflect upon mythology and feminist pop culture and contemporary ideology as they may become embedded in the psyches and even the bodies of their inheritors. Through visceral and sometimes gothic-inspired images, mythological allusions, and the assemblage of strands of narrative, the poems in this collection chart the ways in which manipulative emotional strategies on individual and cultural levels inflict lingering harm upon minds and bodies. Throughout, the poems peel back the layers of what it means for an abuse survivor to reclaim a sense of self—long after the damage has been done. “It turns out that the years I believed myself lucky/were partly responsible for my thinking/there was something deeply wrong with me” could be understood as a refrain for the speaker in Ghostlit or as a shorthand for a cautionary tale about how many survivors may be encouraged to deny the reality of abuse.
"A spellbinding, liminal, and unflinching collection, Theodora Ziolkowski’s Ghostlit interweaves themes of memory, myth, identity, trauma, and absence. These superbly crafted poems operate like a triple-fugue offering whose fractured narrator sifts through lost worlds and shifts of consciousness to mend the heroine’s splintered soul. Astounding, visceral, and, at heart, poignant."
—Hélène Cardona
"Theodora Ziolkowski’s poems glow with the ghosts of past selves. From the unhappy wife to the woman abroad questing desire amidst the burning Notre Dame Cathedral, the speaker breaks her desire free from the leash of marriage and yearns for a new life that doesn’t begin in lies. Alive with longing and introspection, Ziolkowski’s poems bring bright relief to the speaker’s mind and make room for a “woman to rescue herself from the mundanity of the indoors.” From stubborn and messy selves, her ghosts charge into definition by souring the past with fresh eyes. Ghostlit is a haunting and astonishing collection that shimmers with love for the salt and flesh of desire."
—Sebastián H. Páramo
"The poems of Theodora Ziolkowski’s Ghostlit ripple with such self assured strength that it is impossible not to feel stronger and more resolute for having read them. Humming with myth and memory, Ziolkowski laces lines with chiffon and sunflower petals, carves and crafts these poems toward an exhilarating freedom. Ziolkowski writes, “Pompeii was destroyed because of the direction the wind was blowing.” And isn’t that the truth. But as often as the wind brings destruction, it carries you from it. Allow these poems to be the wind that carries you to safety and a new softness."
—Kayleb Rae Candrilli
"In Ghostlit, Theodora Ziolkowski considers a history of emotional abuse and trauma through the transformative lens of memory. Here, the degradation and pain of a past marriage erupt into the present, just as the knowledge of the present circles the past, always refiguring it, always trying to understand. Ziolkowski is a master of tight narrative, of gothic energy, of intense psychological insight. Reading Ghostlit is like inhabiting a brilliant mind—a mind that, for all this, never fails to be interesting, to be complex, and to be powerful."
—Kevin Prufer