Hi there. I'm Amanda.
My main occupation these days is enjoying the world as long as possible with stage IV lung cancer. That more or less amounts to being a body learning to live inside its countdown. On the side, I write poetry.
I was born in the Midwestern USA and have managed to make two unforeseen international moves. The first was to Belgium, and the second to the Czech Republic, where I am now living in Prague with my wife and more unread books than any one person should admit to—or even any two. I have spent much of my life grieving in tongues that I'm still learning to speak and chasing fluency in languages I never expected to require. I often feel like on certain days I pass for human, and on other days I'm made mostly of story.
My writing dwells at the intersection of love and grief. It bears the weight of my son—who passed away at age seven—and the split of a marriage unable to withstand the silence that followed. It speaks from a body moulded by disease, displacement, and questions I still struggle to carry. I dig gently—usually into myself. My poetry is often laced through with Jewish study, fragmented ancestry, and a longing to know what was pushed beyond my reach, meticulously dis-remembered.
When I'm not writing, I'm often reading. If I’m not reading, I’m probably listening to my wife recommend something that will absolutely wreck me, while I pretend I’m not adding it to the list. I have more longing than energy, more love than certainty, and more questions than I’ll ever get around to answering.
The poems help me. It's a blessing if they help anyone else.