Kate Baer is an author and poet who garnered acclaim following the publication of her first collection of poetry, What Kind Of Woman. The collection examines the many roles women play in the modern era, as Baer seeks to place the experiences of motherhood, female companionship, and marriage at the heart of what it means to be poetic.
Baer’s newest work, And Yet, dives even deeper into themes of friendship, love, loss, and motherhood, displaying Baer’s ever-increasing capacity to explore these topics in rare poetic form.
Baer stands as one of very few poets whose breakout collection debuted as a number one instant New York Times Bestseller. Published in 2020, What Kind of Woman was released in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, and by the account of many was a source of affirmation and empathy during times of uncertainty and isolation.
Senior editor at Vogue, Chloe Schama describes the first moment she came across Baer’s poetry on Instagram, writing, “I felt a jolt—that illumination, what Virginia Woolf called, ‘A match burning in a crocus.’ In the midst of the pandemic, hungry for communion, feeling time accelerating even while nothing in my immediate life was happening, I needed witnesses from the past who could testify that this odd and static present was not all there was.”
A major contributor to Baer’s success on Instagram is due to her series of erasure poems, which use untoward messages sent to Baer online as source material. Through erasure, Baer reduces the text to a minimalist, poignant, and searing retort to the original message. These works, in addition to poems inspired by notes of admiration, comprise her second collection, I Hope This Finds You Well.
Baer’s latest collection, And Yet, is set to be released in November 2022. The newest collection of poems shows us that at a time of collective unrest and hopelessness, we cannot give up on ourselves and each other. We have the power to persist and be the change we want to see.
Baer’s work has also been published in The New Yorker, Literary Hub, Huffington Post, and the New York Times. To learn more, visit https://www.katebaer.com/.
