I became intimately familiar with Whitney Hanson’s poetry recently, thanks to an Instagram reel I was shown by the Algorithm. I IMMEDIATELY pre-ordered her newest poetry book “the love of my life” and it arrived on the evening of its release day, July 7th, 2026. It showed up while I was taking a much needed nap, and soon as I realized it was at my doorstep I dug right into it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dagu19yxA1M

By the way, Whitney herself struggled to find copies of her book on release day because it kept selling out! That’s what a massive success this already is! She wanted to sign what copies she could 🙂

Right away in the introduction, I felt it important to share this line:

“Fire is not a joking matter.”

This is relevant as my wife, Emily Slatin, was in fire rescue for two decades. How appropriate a line that is for a poetry collection book about burning everything down, rising from the ashes, and reclaiming your life after rebirth.

“What remains when everything you tied your identity to burns? Even after the worst has passed, recovery takes an indeterminate amount of time.”

I burned my own entire life down about six years ago now. I am only now rising from the ashes. What is left is what is meant to be, and it’s my time to reclaim these things.

From the first poem, “Hi, my name is Whitney,” is something I immediately relate to:

“I’m absolutely certain of almost nothing,
But I am certain of this:
I want to be understood.
More than anything, I want to be understood.”

And that, my friends, is the problem I’ve had for nearly forty years now, wandering through this wilderness we call American civilization, and thus far, only a handful including Emily have ever heard me scream out my truth.

This is from the second poem, “The prime condition for a forest fire is overgrowth.”

“I swept the pieces of my shattered heart 
Under the floorboards.
I spent years trying to make my success
Louder than my agony
I stayed up late at night,
Painting over the fractures in my facade.”

And this:

“When we reach a place
where we are forced to fall apart,
we reach the place
we must begin.”

…

The third poem is called “you’re not healing you’re hiding.” Story of my life, thank you, Harry Styles.

“Much of growing up
Is not learning
But unlearning
It is a journey
Not to find who you are
But who you were”

OMG these words. They are such fire.

“…sunlight is a powerful disinfectant.” – “How to tend an invisible wound”

“When you decide to do the excruciating work of healing, of standing toe to toe with your past, it becomes critical that you surround yourself with people who acknowledge and validate the work you are doing.”

“I do not want to be loved for the sake of being loved. I want to be loved because you have traced my scars back to their origins and found something familiar on your way there. I want to be loved because you have turned my heart inside out and sorted through its contents. I want to be loved because your pain recognizes mine, and when our eyes meet I don’t have to wonder if I am being seen.”

“Love me past the surface of my skin or do not love me at all.”

“… You’ll find that mourning is another word for making space.” WOW!

…

From “Perhaps it all comes down to this”

“We all desire two things:
To be authentically ourselves
And to be loved for it.

The problems arise when these two desires
Run perpendicular to each other,
When you are put in circumstances
Where you can have one but not the other.”

“Strictly conditional love
Can be just as damaging as hate”

…

From “A poem for people who intellectualize their feelings:”

“The beauty of being human
is the privilege to mean something to another person
And the burden of being human
Is knowing when to let the meaning lie in the past”

“They say grief is just love with no place to go.”

…

From “Parallel Line”

“Perhaps you will always be my parallel line,
Forever one step and an infinity away…”

…

From “I’m starting to forget you”

“Time may seem merciful,
But don’t be fooled. Time is a thief,
Time is a criminal
Dressed up in a costume of relief”

“I’ve never known how to let anything die / I suppose that is how a person becomes a writer.”

“It’s not so much a gift as it is a disease,
A sickness brought on by grief and rattling keys.
It’s not so much a poem as it is a prayer,
A cry to whoever might be there.”

From “Cocooning”

“When it is time for a new chapter to start
Often your body will know it
Before your mind accepts it”

…

From “Ashes”

“The worst affliction
Is not to live without love.
It is to live without hope”

“I am convinced
Some people come into this world
Carrying a bit of hand-me-down grief”

“When I am feeling
Utterly alone in the world
I write about the moon”

“I imagine everyone has pockets in their heart
Where they store hope for a rainy day
But it seems my pockets
Have holes because hope never seems to stay” 

“I have accepted the sporadic
Nature of joy.
She arrives and leaves
As she pleases”

…

“Somewhere in between” describes the purgatory I’ve been in over the past year or so. Almost to a T.

This might be one of the best titles of a poem ever: “Purgatory is the parking lot of a tire repair shop”

From said poem:

“I’m told I should make some friends
But tell me how to make friends
When I am less than half a person
How can I introduce myself
To someone new
When it’s been months since
I’ve met myself”

“My current hobbies include
Ruminating on my past
And trying to excavate my identity
From beneath my grief”

“When I say I feel a deep sadness
Please know that I am not lacking perspective

I am consumed by it”

Story of my life.

“I am convinced it is not ignorance

That makes a person go mad

It is sanity

It is seeing

It is the inability to shut your eyes

When everyone else is sleeping”!

“I exist between my ears
Far more
Than I exist between the earth and sky
There is this beautiful world before me
And I am trapped inside my mind”

“I frequently feel like a moth
Looking for the moon 
But only finding the fire”

“It is possible to have empathy
For the voice inside of your head 
Without agreeing
With every word that it says”

“I refuse to abandon my darkness
Because it is the only part of me
That greets me with no expectation
It rejects the perfectionist within
And reminds me that real humans
Have skin as thin as paper
And hearts as fragile as dragonfly wings”

“You cannot clean your house
With a broom made of shame.”

…

I love this title: “If we must grow our separate ways”

This poem is absolute fire, and makes Emily and I wish to cease writing ever again. Like seriously, this girl is AMAZING!

“Isolation is driven by fear
Solitude is driven by love”

“I have never been one to move on quickly
I mourn the way the earth does”

“Only after I have withered to nothing
Do I begin to consider possibilities
Like sunlight and persistence”