Turning the Lights Back On Paperback – April 3, 2026

Stillness and awe intersect in Rebecca Spears’s latest collection, Turning the Lights Back On. Fabric acts as a central image in a number of these poems — denim and silk and wool — but more so, metaphoric fabrics: the threads that bind and those that break. The voice ranges from intimate to inspiring, as private tableaus, as entreaties to gather the reader closer, as direct address. These works lead us from childhood through motherhood, from wonder to grief to rejuvenation. Spears’ voice is elegant and precise, weaving images of moths and angels and raccoons unexpectedly with widows and once-chic designers. In the end, these are startling poems of alterations and reconstructions. —John A. McDermott, The Last Spirits of ManhattanTurning the Lights Back On is a note-perfect title for these poems, for the unblinking gaze Rebecca Spears shines on a difficult but rewarding inquiry into self-reliance. Ordinary moments reveal a life, as here: “I wake always facing the empty side, rise quickly / to pull the comforter taut. Nothing’s changed / that way.” But these poems rise to meet the day. These poems reveal a woman who welcomes vivid, if painful, sensations. “I invite the honeybees to swarm me,” she writes. “I want to wear them all day, revel / in the brocade / of their glitter and sting.” You will find comfort, too, in these pages. “The world is not such a bad place / after all,” Spears reminds us. “A look in the barn, / and the lamb born in the night / rests with its ewe.” —David Meischen, author, Caliche Road PoemsandNopalito, Texas: Stories Read more