Maybe the Body

A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 from Debutiful and Garden & Gun

“Radiant . . . a generous offering full of flora and fury.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil

A brilliant debut poetry collection by National Poetry Series finalist Asa Drake that explores the lineage and future lineage of a body shaped by economic, ecological, and political dissonance.

In her stunning debut poetry collection, Maybe the Body, Asa Drake witnesses firsthand the conflicts between art and patriotism, labor and longing. She reaches for the lush landscapes—real and recounted—of the Philippines and the American South as she traces the lineage of a body shaped by economic, ecological, and political dissonance. As one poem reminds us, "it's so hard to write about love without writing about the country we live in." These thirty-eight poems, threaded together with a six-part braided sequence, bind a multigenerational conversation between grandmothers, mothers, and aunts through a range of forms, from pantoums to prose poems. With its vivid imagery and an unforgettable lyrical perspective, Maybe the Body reconsiders the natural transactions of work, intimacy, and the poem itself.“A book that offers so much to love—precision of language [and] a deeply embedded sense of both narrative and lyric devotion.” —Split Lip Magazine

“Sumptuous, lush, observant, Drake turns her perceptiveness back onto those who look towards her and her body with an occupying gaze, and in doing so, creates her own—flesh-blooded, flower-wrought—empire.” —Four Way Review

“Excellent . . . These poems reverberate with an infectious joy, celebrating the revolutionary act of enduring day after day.” —Publishers Weekly

“Clever . . . deftly turning over and over many different kinds of love.” —Electric Lit

“This collection debuts Asa Drake as a sage of liminal states and spaces.” —Janine Joseph, author of Decade of the Brain

“Reveals how our very bodies are shaped by sociopolitical forces.” —Library Journal

“Asa Drake urges us to reconsider, and this is invaluable in a time of hot takes.” —VerseCurious

“Maybe the Body is a radiant collection, a generous offering full of flora and fury, plums, and caterpillars. These poems are a field of inheritance where language, history, and lineage collide, and in Drake’s capable hands, the body becomes both question and altar.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders and Bite by Bite

“‘Sometimes, history is too beautiful to be believed,’ Asa Drake writes in her collection Maybe the Body, which is an extensive love song of memory, family, self, and the challenges of differentiating one from the other. When a speaker wades in a river that runs beneath an interstate, they think of a mother’s words: ‘Care first. Decide about love later.’ This book is about places and homes: ones we don’t want to lose, ones we find in others, and those we must decide to build for ourselves. Maybe the Body is the home I have longed for.” —Phillip B. Williams, author of Mutiny and OursAsa Drake is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. A 2024 National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, the Florida Book Awards, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House, and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems have been published with The Slowdown Podcast, The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review Daily, and The Georgia Review. A former librarian, she currently works as a teaching artist.