This Heart

by Stephane Mohr

THIS HEART is a multimedia cluster of confessional poetry and prose, explores themes of self-image, falling victim to and overcoming mental illness, and most importantly, love and friendship, and how powerful we become when we open our hearts to them.

133 pages, Paperback

Published February 12, 2021

Reviews

[Sam]

Stephane Mohr’s debut poetry collection is a tender, intimate and evocative portrait of a young life. It’s ultimately a collection about fragility: of our hearts, of our minds, of life and family and friendships, and how we long to cling onto them all.

Written with profound honesty, these poems are pieced together like moments in a scrapbook, from the gloomy and gut-wrenching to elation. Mohr manages to make it both a deeply personal collection, littered with photos and memos form her life, while also a relatable one: the tearing and mending of a heart, whether through love or grief or internal struggle, will resonate with any reader.

At the end of it all, this book asks that we remember this girl, this grief, this fragility, this longing - and through all of this, perhaps be reminded of ourselves.

[Caitlin Conlon]

"This Heart" is the moment a sky breaks into dawn. It asks us what our hearts are made of (perhaps hummingbirds? a beehive?) and then holds us tight as we figure out the answer. In Stephane Mohr's debut collection she introduces a speaker that wants desperately to give themselves to the world and is learning the best way to do so. Her writing insists with grace, beauty, and clarity that our bodies will persist through any tragedy and, by the end, you believe her. More importantly you want to believe her, even if you don't. "This Heart" reads like a diary, filled with poems, photographs, iPhone notes, and letters. At its core, Mohr's book is about love, the ways we carry it, and the delicate beauties and crushing sadnesses that make our lives worth writing about. And, in this case, absolutely worth reading about.