'Invisible Wasp', the new poetry collection by Stephanie Powell, is an embellishment of desires, a weaving of the white lies, imagination and hope we use to cope with the vicissitudes of the everyday. The poems traverse themes of depression, anxiety, fertility, pregnancy, family and various losses of language. Some gaps are filled in while others are left open, inviting the reader into a world where everything is familiar, but malleable, and always at the cusp of shapeshifting into something different.

These poems are small but defiant and seductive acts, confronting us with the stories we tell ourselves, our own reckonings, coping mechanisms and convictions in the face of the hard stuff life throws at us.