One Year Breaking Against Another

it's time to preorder April and Back Again

Author

Claire Taylor
December 30, 2025

Here we are again. Another year coming to a close, a new one on its way.

My book, April and Back Again, is now available to preorder. I plan to write more about this collection and how it came together in the months to come (I plan to talk about it repeatedly; consider yourselves warned), but for now, I mostly just want to share that it’s available to purchase and that it would mean so very much to me if you preordered a copy.

cover art by Liz Woodward

Tracking the final year of her thirties from April 2024 through April 2025, Claire Taylor’s debut poetry collection is an intimate portrait of loving and living against a backdrop of existential dread. Deftly oscillating between quotidian scenes of family life and the anxiety of raising children amid the realities of climate change, gun violence, and a democracy on the verge of demise, Taylor leads us through the ups and downs of a year that was history in the making. Simultaneously marveling at the magic of watching her children grow and witnessing the horror of a country going, literally and figuratively, down in flames, April and Back Again follows Taylor from the pleasures of life’s little moments into the growing depths of her own despair.

Full of quiet meditations, heartfelt introspection, and delightful hints of humor, April and Back Again is like the first hopeful signs of spring after a long, cold winter.

It is an understatement to say that 2025 was a long, difficult year. Going back through the final edits for this collection and reading through the sections of the book that cover the first four months of 2025, I was surprised by how far away those months and the moments that defined them felt for me. So much changed so rapidly and for the worse this year. Back in the spring of 2024 when I started writing the monthly poems that would go on to form the foundation of this collection, I could not have predicted how that year would end and this one would begin—the doom and the heartache, the horrors we have been forced to witness and confront over the past twelve months. It has been exhausting. It will continue to be exhausting.

What I returned to again and again, though, in reflecting back on my year the way one tends to do when it reaches its end, is how lucky I’ve felt to be loved and to love in return. How much joy I found in the small, simple pleasures of family time, and connection with friends. How bolstered and purposeful I felt by growing my connections and service to my community. How uplifted and optimistic both creating and observing art in a variety of forms left me feeling this year.

These are the things I want to take with me and build off of in the year ahead. The pleasures of living with an open heart and a curious mind. The pleasures of celebrating connection and creativity.

April and Back Again officially comes out on February 24, 2026. It is going to be a big year for me, and I want to open my arms and welcome whatever delights it is willing to offer. I wish you the same for your lives. I wish you moments of joy and rest, resilience and fortitude, and lots and lots of love.

Thank you for your support this year. For reading this newsletter and my other writings. For your kind comments in response to my work. It has meant so much to me.

Have a happy New Year.

You can find more of my writing & contact information at clairemtaylor.com. If you’d like to further support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books, or a copy of Little Thoughts Press. I also have a ko-fi page.

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