AND YET
The New Yorker
Kate Baer joins Kevin Young to read “The Morning After,” by Ellen Bass, and her own poem “Mixup.” Baer is the Times best-selling author of three poetry collections, including, most recently “And Yet.”
NPR
Kate Baer is a three-time New York Times best-selling author. Baer’s poetry found a following during the pandemic, when millions of women were struggling to balance work and caregiving. She has long been clear about what having childcare has meant to her own career: “I can't do a single act of writing or creating or thinking about writing unless I have childcare. Without that, there's nothing.”
Mother Magazine
“The good news about rejection,” she explains, “is that it’s often a gift. An avenue to a new direction or a different voice. It can be quite painful, but I don’t know of any artist who hasn’t experienced loads of rejection. Hearing those stories helps too.”
Lancaster Online
Kate Baer felt like she was having a fling. The author should have been working on her debut novel. But instead, she found joy indulging in a different creative endeavor: poetry. “I had been working on a novel for a while, like four years,” Baer says. “And I started cheating on it with poetry, which is very fun, very sexy.”
Pop Fiction Women’s Podcast
On this episode of Complicated Conversations, we welcome back Kate Baer, the three time New York Times bestselling author, Aries, Enneagram four, and our absolute favorite modern poet. If you don't own multiple copies of her most recent collection, AND YET, you are missing out on feeling seen as a woman, mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend.
WITF January Book of the Month
WITF is partnering with Midtown Scholar on a Pick of the Month. Read along and discover books we think you’ll like. January’s pick is And Yet: Poems by Kate Baer.
Indie Poetry Bestseller List
Indie Poetry Bestseller List, based on sales at independent bookstores nationwide for the eight-week period ending January 1, 2022.
Sara Peterson
[Kate’s] words have resonated with women, many of whom tell her they are coming to poetry for the first time. In a year in which all people, but perhaps especially mothers, are grasping for words to express their exhaustion and anger, in Baer they have found someone to say it for them — and in snippets short enough that they actually have time to read a piece in its entirety.
Los Angeles Times
An excerpt from And Yet featuring its title poem.
Buzzfeed
And Yet is a lovely and enlightening collection of poetry by Kate Baer, whose short poems explore themes of family, motherhood, the pandemic, grief, love, hope, and more. Baer stirs up a range of emotions through her writing, a beautiful offering of relatability and vulnerability.
BookPage
Kate Baer shares dispatches from the domestic front in her accessible, inviting collection And Yet. In poems that explore gender dynamics and the day-to-day grind of family life, Baer’s voice is that of an intimate, confiding friend. Across the collection, she takes her own measure as a parent and a wife, toggling between self-acceptance and self-loathing, triumphs and trials. She rounds up snippets from horrifying headlines in “Daily Planet”: “Return to school deemed not safe for / Un-vaccinated protests rise as / Hospital beds at capacity in these seven.” To flustered mothers, the internet-weary and anyone bewildered by contemporary life, Baer’s collection will be a balm.
Indie Next Pick
Baer captures our children growing before our eyes and slow reminders of our inevitable deaths. These poems grip you from the start and refuse to let you go. She explores womanhood and wholeness and what that even means. I can’t get enough!
I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL
MSNBC
Watch Kate and Alicia discuss fighting back and turning her negative DMs into poetry in her latest collection, I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL.
The Rumpus
Her latest, I Hope This Finds You Well, is a collection of erasure poems created from letters and notes received from fans, online trolls, and transcripts of current events such as Trump’s pussy-grabbing rant. Overall, the collection reads as a compelling act of reclaiming.
BiblioLifestyle
For four years I worked on a novel that is complete but has never been published. Non-writers are often horrified to hear that because it sounds like a waste of time. Writers understand it is part of a necessary process. Personally I consider that four years to be my less expensive MFA program.
Elle
People have recommended I change my profile picture to a cartoon or not open my DMs or take down any photo that shows my body, but then we get into “she was asking for it” territory, which is also not okay. It’s not my job to present myself in a way that people won’t take offense to.
The Week
Kate Baer's latest best-selling poetry collection, I Hope This Finds You Well, consists of poems she created using messages she received from admirers and trolls. Below, the author of What Kind of Woman names six favorite novels that also take risks.
Today
“I had to sit with a lot of discomfort over who I was and who others wanted me to be,” Baer told TODAY at the time. “There is an expectation for American mothers to act like Deborah in 'Everybody Loves Raymond' but look like Betty Draper from 'Mad Men.' Instead, I found myself looking more like Deborah, but feeling like Peggy.”
The Guardian
And poetic artistry remains important to her. She speaks for her community as well as herself when she says: “My hope is that by sharing these pieces we continue to hold on to the truths that sustain us, and when we do encounter the inevitable noise – we tune our ears to hear the song.”
Romper
Poems like this illustrate the fact that while crafting an online image as a woman or mother is not for the faint of heart, sometimes we can find genuine bursts of connection, simply by having the courage to put at least one side of ourselves out there for others to see.
Entertainment Weekly
The poet's viral erasure poems — Baer takes Instagram messages from disgruntled followers and collages them into feminist works — journey to the page for her next book, which will also use op-eds and court testimonies as source material.
WHAT KIND OF WOMAN
The Observer
When her no-holds-barred collection of poetry came out, Kate Baer was inundated with grateful messages. Why had it hit a chord with ordinary mothers struggling to be heard?
Sunday Times (UK)
Baer’s poems are sharp observations on modern womanhood…
NYT Profile
Baer has found her voice within that, but in subject matter that has not traditionally been considered “high art…”
GOOP’s Bookclub Pick
Fire up the text chain to discuss your twenties, first loves, banning the phrase “getting her body back,”misguided advice dispensed at bridal showers, surprising things children say, not having it all, and why it’s time to buy a hat.
Publisher’s Weekly
“In these confident and fearless poems, Baer suggests that the deepest and most vulnerable love is found in life’s imperfections.”
Vogue
“If parenting is the overt subject of What Kind of Woman, misogyny is its bracing undercurrent. The book overall is an affirmation of a woman’s perspective and experience—and in that way a feminist statement—but then there are more explicit cris de coeur, sometimes playing out on a larger stage.”
Entertainment Weekly
“The poet's Instagram presence has become a balm for many in 2020, and now her lyrical takes on feminism, marriage, and politics come to the page IRL with this new collection.”
Literary Hub
Featuring the editor’s favorite pick from What Kind Of Woman.
Chicago Review
“This powerhouse debut appears at a time when many of us may need reminders of our strength.”
Today Show
“Baer’s debut poetry collection dives headfirst into the intricacies of motherhood against the balance of what is expected of women.”
Romper
“All of us want to feel seen in our experiences, and telling the truth about what is happening structurally lends itself to a giant ‘me too.’ I live for the gritty and unfiltered realities of what is actually going on behind the scenes, in motherhood and otherwise.”
Pop Sugar
“Baer uses poetry to examine what it means to be a woman in today's society, from the transformative experience of becoming a mother to the power of surrounding yourself with female friends.”
Cup Of Jo
“She writes about everything from body image to parenthood struggles to marital sex and just gets it.”
CNN
“Baer’s debut collection of poems takes an honest, feminist look at the roles of women — as friends, mothers, daughters and partners. Take this section from “Robyn Hood”: “Imagine if we took back our diets / our grand delusions, the time spent / thinking about the curve of our form. / Imagine if we took back every time we / called attention to one or the other: her body, our body, the bad shape of things.” Relate? Us too. Which is why we’re picking this up for the important women in our life this holiday season.”
“Give her long enough, and she will provide a window on what friendship really looks between women right now, what motherhood really looks like, what marriage really looks like. That's kind of the heart of it.”
Why Should I?: A Podcast for Women
“Kate’s poetry has taken the internet by storm.”
Cup Of Jo
“The Pennsylvania-based poet writes about the behind-the-scenes of parenting and marriage in such a real way, you can’t help nodding your head while reading.”