Creature in Bloom

Rebekah Denison Hewitt is a poet, librarian, and educator. She holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was a Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Graduate Fellow. Her work has appeared in publications such as Narrative, The Rumpus, Poetry Northwest, and Bellevue Literary Review. She lives in Wisconsin with her family.

• How to Create a Whole Human Confession to Libby Karyotype Elegy for What Almost Was In One Version Something in the Water Would You Rather In the Presence of So Much Water, Hagar Tries to Remember Thirst Fourth of July at a Lake in the Midwest Knowledge at 20 Weeks Unicorn Soul The Accident At 32 Weeks, a Darkening ៙ On Discovering the Ob/Gyn Has Won the Golden Scalpel Award Francis X. Carmody Comes to Me in a Dream Epistemology At 39 Weeks I Write a Poem About Kira Johnson So Many Things Are Like Giving Birth on Ambien Once, Libby Told Me She Had Recovered Her First Memory Breech Lot’s Wife Speaks of Turning Salt and Light Dear Libby, Please Tell Me If I’m Remembering Right ៙ En Caul Three Ways of Moving Through Time Eve Speaks from Outside the Belly of the Fish While Up at 4 am With the Baby, She Remembers Eating Pineapple in Costa Rica Mother and Child as Art Installation Salt and Light Pantoum of Divided Attention Baba Yaga as Ars Poetica Mother/Stepmother God as Rumpelstiltskin Early Dark The Meadow Smoke ៙ Good Guy, Bad Guy, Monster ៙ How to Take Your Own Advice Acknowledgements Notes

"Rooted in the physical and emotional stages of early motherhood, these poems candidly navigate pregnancy, loss, and parenting against the backdrop of gun violence and other tragedies."- (Publishers Weekly, Spring 2026 Preview) “These multifaceted, fierce, and tender revelations on pregnancy—a ‘baby extracted / like a bad tooth,’ a ‘little unicorn soul’—and on mothering in a world marked by loss and gun violence cement Hewitt’s arrival as a captivating, self-aware poet. Creature in Bloom will both gut and heal you when you least expect it.” - Cynthia Marie Hoffman "Hewitt gives voice to the mundane and monstrous challenges of being not only a parent but a person in this world—and urges us to keep on. Blessing and reckoning, elegy and prayer, this book is a testament to the everyday courage of mothers—that word for strength born from the heart." - Leila Chatti