The second collection
No Spare People
Black Lawrence Press · 2023
No Spare People documents the joys and perils of a tiny mother-daughter family navigating life on the margins. From poems about finding autonomy as a queer, unpartnered parent by choice in the South to those chronicling a generation’s economic instability, Hoover rejects so-called “acceptable losses” stemming from inequalities of gender, race, and class. The book asks: what happens to the woman no longer willing to live a lie? How does language invent not only identity, but possibility? A Lambda Literary “Most Anticipated” title, with cover art by Ever Baldwin.
- “Most Anticipated” titleLambda Literary
- Books We’re Excited AboutIndependent Book Review
- SPD Recommends selectionSmall Press Distribution
In review
“No Spare People is gorgeous, with a philosophical throughline and an embracing of conceptual work in poems that, yes, has the kind of swagger many of us find attractive as queer, femme intellectuals. The single mother, poet-professor, speaker of the poems in No Spare People writes in the knowledge of the material and political conditions of her poems, questioning and describing and naming web of power relationships and around herself and her child, opening up, potentially, space for living beyond those structures.”
Han VanderHart
“The first poem in Erin Hoover’s latest collection, No Spare People, ends with the line: ‘I open my throat’ — a fierce opening to a book seething with anger and love. These poems reflect the contradictions, complications, and heartbreak of living in the world, particularly as a woman and as a mother. They are sharp, determined, tender, and open.”
Chelsea Risley, Southern Review of Books
“Hoover’s poems insist on claiming their own space. Within these spaces arise thoughtful, nuanced observations and confrontations.”
Emily Choate, Chapter 16
Reviews & interviews about No Spare People
Chapter 16 Sundress Reads Heavy Feather Review Midwest Book Review Scene4 Southern Review of Books interview The Nerd Cantina