Poetry By Kyrsta
As Long As
This Heart Beats
In the start of 2023 Kyrsta won the Chapbook Competition with Beyond The Veil Press and is so excited to bring her debut book into the world with this very special LGBTQIA+ press! She worked with queer artist Mandahla Rose to design the beautiful cover art and is so proud to share her poetry collection with you.
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Scroll down to find out more about her
debut poetry book!
About The Book:
In Kyrsta’s collection of poetry - As Long As This Heart Beats - she has gut wrenchingly written with her heart. On each page she reveals another layer of herself, exposing her journey of self-acceptance in the wake of discovering her bisexuality. In an effort to show her readers they are not alone, she exposes herself down to the bone, taking the reader through the heartbreak and beauty of her queer journey to find love. This collection will rip your heart out before tendering paper-macheing it back together again, and above all else, remind you that we all deserve the chance to fall madly in love.
Advanced Praise:
Kyrsta's new collection is a force of queer magic, that will steady any ready and open heart that needs a little healing and a safe place to call home.
-Derrick C. Brown, publisher of Write Bloody Publishing and author of Love Ends in a Tandem Kayak
As Long as This Heart Beats, is a debut poetry chapbook that masterfully unearths the depths of exploration and the cemented pains and joys of human experience and bisexual identity within society. These poems aren't simple words on paper; they're evocative rhythmic echoes of one’s heart's desires, fears, and hopes. Kyrsta Morehouse is all of us in her poems from the flushed cheeks to the Jenga dishes in her sink. While Kyrsta warns to “continue at your own risk”, when we do, she brilliantly continues to weave a tailored journey into the euphoria of newfound passion and safety, and the bittersweet taste of memories with finesse. I come away from this chapbook feeling soothed, stirred, and eager to keep this book as an eternal staple on my shelf; as a way of reminding me to free who I am, too.
-Bree Bailey, winner of the 2023 Jack McCarthy Book Prize with Write Bloody.
Kyrsta Morehouse's debut reads as a living time capsule for the journey of a queer person. These poems are diverse in their willingness to tackle bisexuality through a spectrum of experiences. They are both love songs and fight songs. Rage and Hope. Angst and outright bliss. The line, "I want to kiss you in every closet I have ever come out of," is emblematic of Morehouse's ability to hold multiple truths and emotions at once. With delightful turns of phrases and stunning lyricism, these poems make paintings of a familiar past. If you are looking to see yourself in another's art, As Long As This Heart Beats is the book for you.
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- Megan Falley, author of Drive Here and Devastate Me, & creator of Poems That Don't Suck
As Long As This Heart Beats is a celebration of love and staying alive while also being a battle cry. In these poems, Kyrsta Morehouse excavates “the haunted house of herself” to examine what it means to accept and embrace bisexuality, to live authentically in a world that “only deems them safe when there is 6 feet of dirt between them and another soul” and what it looks like to love fearlessly despite. Morehouse will make you fall back in love with love, will invite you to find parts of yourself in her story, and in doing so to recognize “the black and white binary” and its influences on our society. These are poems that are both brave and brutal, bold and beautiful, unabashed and self-believing. Let As Long As This Heart Beats be a reminder of your own beating heart and what truly matters in being.
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- Melissa Sussens, author of Slaughterhouse
(Karavan Press, 2022)