Chestnut Review Chapbooks, 2025

"These poems sing of the everyday world, the everydayness of life, love, and family, lifting us via the poet’s act of attention into an almost spiritual realm." —Christopher Citro, author of If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun

"Big Man guides us through an unflinching portrait of a father. But perhaps, more importantly, we witness a journey from father as mythic figure to father as human." —Su Cho author of The Symmetry of Fish

"Swift—& blunt w/ grief: 'We opened the earth's / lid and buried him there.' Katie Kemple's twenty-five poem ode to her dad, Big Man, is personal, specific, vivid." —Adam Golaski, author of Voice Notes

"Reading Katie Kemple's Big Man feels like sitting with an old friend on a comfy couch and exchanging stories about parents late into the night." —Katie Manning, author of Hereverent and 28,065 Nights