Published Books

i’d rather be lightning

March 2023 (GASHER Press).

I’d Rather Be Lightning is a love song to the earth, celebrating what we stand to lose. These poems are “throwing a tantrum” about the climate crisis, written by a “child / of imperialism whining about freedom / from the bondage of stuff.” What do you get when you combine capitalism, environmentalism, ecology, globalization, fascism, economic crisis, and global pandemic? Nancy Lynée Woo transmutes anxiety into dynamic and playful poems, writing into the absurdity of the global crises facing humanity with a soft wit, enduring hope, and deep love for the more-than-human world. Eco-feminism moving at lightspeed, I’d Rather Be Lightning captures a Millennial’s despair over environmental destruction with bolts of humor, compassion, and formal experimentation.

"Nancy Woo's I'd Rather Be Lightning is a necessary invocation. It's a handbook, spellbook, and remembered lucid dream to guide us in and through these times. Clear-eyed about the climate crisis while brimming with love for humans and more-than-humans, this debut collection is a powerful force of language and hope." Tamiko Beyer

Bearing The Juice Of It All

Bearing the Juice of It All, by Nancy Lynée Woo, is a poetry chapbook that invites the reader on a daring exploration of developing womanhood. These poems engage a loose narrative voice grounded in emotion, pulled forward by relentlessly imagistic language that blurs the lines between dream logic and waking states, mythology and modernity, expectations and reality. The collection questions where the locus of sight is--in her body or his? Reaching into the crevices of a maturing female psyche, the poetic arc probes into themes of sexuality and motherhood, abuse and transformation, abortion and partnership, independence and sisterhood, love and family--all ensconced in the poet's incorrigible optimism and dedication to healing. While these poems may lead into dark alleys, they emerge to illuminate the belief that women are inherently imbued with the right to direct their own bodies, thoughts, voices, and desires.

Chapbook: 38 pp.
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Publication Date: Oct. 2016

Rampant

Nancy Lynee Woo's first chapbook of poetry, Rampant, performs an exploration of cultural identity, the nature of love, and the anxiety of existence in a range of poetic forms.

Chapbook: 22 pp.
Publisher: Sadie Girl Press
Publication Date: 2014