About the book

Willows Wake and Walk Away is a dream sequence in the aftermath of trauma. As an unnamed speaker retraces her steps through mist-laced forests and crumbling childhood fairytales, she encounters ancient gods still alive in the faultlines of memory. These are poems of relapse and revelation, loneliness and liminality, asking: what happens after the haunting ends, when the serpent finally sleeps? What does it mean to carry the weight of a heart sloughing off its innumerable dead—and, in the absence of peace, learn to love a life wild, uncanny, and wholly one's own?

Add the book to your shelves on Goodreads
Or buy from your local independent bookstore
Or see the press kit

#willowswakeandwalkaway #haleywooning #ireadhalfmystic

(All orders over $60 come with free worldwide shipping. Use the code FREESHIP at checkout!)

Advance praise

“Positioned between root and rot, beauty and violence, ‘ghost-lives’ and bruised bodies, Haley Wooning’s brilliant Willows Wake and Walk Away is built on ruin and recovery. We follow the narrator across night-dazzled landscapes of phantoms, bones, and forest animals, through unnamable losses where grief is ‘a lyre that waits unstrung’ to a reclamation of voice. Though loneliness, trauma, and survival are intricately knotted in these poems, the collection offers something other than despair: a tender hand reaching out in the dark, a stay against sorrow and harm. This is a book to return again and again for solace and the reminder that ‘when the rot is through, the flowers will consume it.’” —Simone Muench, author of The Under Hum

“With elemental precision, Haley Wooning writes of aftermath and metamorphosis in language both earthen and ethereal—sharp as bone, soft as breath. The poems in Willows Wake and Walk Away do not merely describe survival; they enact it.” —Sierra DeMulder, author of Ephemera

“Willows Wake and Walk Away is a book haunted by ‘the plural of loneliness’ in the aftermath of trauma. The ‘dream-crazed’ and grieving speaker of these lush poems—attuned to the mysteries of the nonhuman living world—asks, ‘What endures?’ In her search for a fitting myth, she encounters ‘no hero to conjure,’ no epiphany. In this poetry collection, what endures is the astonishment of having survived, of belonging to the earth’s ever-changing songs.” —Patrycja Humienik, author of We Contain Landscapes

Press & reader reviews

“Wooning’s poetry of post-traumatic self-necromancy gorgeously puppets the reader’s sensory experience. Powered with lush visuals and decadent diction, while still staying grounded with comprehensive allusions and poignant questions, this book offers both surrealist introspection and radical acceptance. One of the most powerful books of the year.” A review by Kylie Ayn Yockey

“Through the effort of trying to name the ineffable, a fragile peace emerges—not because the speaker succeeds in articulating it, but because she accepts the limits of language and continues anyway. Once the frustration softens, once the need to conquer language fades, the poem has done its work. The paradox was never meant to be solved, it was meant to be lived through.” An interview with Haley Wooning for the Half Mystic blog

“I don't think I can overstate the level of beauty that is contained within some of these poems. … I couldn’t stop reading this. It was engulfing, cresting the peaks and ceilings of what it means to be grieving a self that is never enough, until it seems we cannot anymore.” A review by Brandon Roby

“The poetry collection is raw and dreamlike in how the author writes about trauma and recovery. It’s a beautiful, messy, tender journey.” A review & giveaway by Cal

“Trauma by nature feels like a thousand grand and sparking questions, but the one I always return to is this: what happens after we survive the unthinkable? What work follows the hero in shining armor on a great steed? The beast is bested, the bedtime story completed, and then what?” An essay by Haley Wooning for the Half Mystic blog

“Anyone who has been through traumatic experiences will relate to much of what is being depicted here. To me, this felt like a soul crying out for recognition, for hope, and for home.” A review by Angie

“I am suffering right now, but I still see the sweetness of the grass on the hill in the wind. Something horrible and life-altering and unspeakable has happened, yet the sun still rises, there is still a forest somewhere, and the heart still beats.” An interview with Haley Wooning by Liam Xavier

“A book about rediscovering your identity and reclaiming autonomy after trauma, finding mirrors to view oneself as a whole rather than crumbling parts, and working through healing to live rather than merely scrape the edges of survival. There’s purpose, strength, and submission to joy woven in the pages.” A review by Libby Jenner

About the author

Haley Wooning is a writer and high school English teacher from the Bay Area. Her debut poetry collection is Mothmouth (Spuyten Duyvil 2019). An avid reader and puzzle lover, she also enjoys playing story-based games with her friends and community.

Reader & launch photos

Coming soon!