Words for Coffee

"Pure-hearted, mournful, playful, serious-these poems run the gamut as both testament and elegy to a great woman gone."

-Kevin Rabas, 2017-2019 Poet Laureate of Kansas and author of Improvise

"In the measured, understated lines of Words for Coffee, Tyler Robert Sheldon conjures the intimate, quiet, secure space of his grandmother's home. The speaker's beloved grandmother is cozy and known, but not simple: a radical therapist with a clear-headed bravery, she shares Rothkos and ancient oaks with the speaker, folding her strength into him. Later, as the poems delve into the heartache of memory loss and elder care, the speaker and his family 'pile sandbags against the coming flood,' imbued as they are with life from her gentle, empathetic presence. Words for Coffee channels the specific grief of a love that threatens perfection: the growing, collective awareness that it will someday end."

-Dorsey Craft, author of A Brief History of Accidental Inventions and Plunder

"Words for Coffee is more than just an exploration of grief, but a lighthouse for anyone who has lost a loved one. Tyler Robert Sheldon is a brilliant describer of moments of care, connection, and loss. This poetry collection offers safe harbor." 

-Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The American Daughters