These two chapbooks are in conversation with one another. You could start, end & re-enter the landscape of mothers, fathers, daughters between these poems as you’d like.
Preview of Cumulus; pre-order now, ships summer 2026
Pre-order Cumulus with a custom digital poster: Dad-libs are the bookending poems of Cumulus, a summer 2026 chapbook by Shivani Gupta from Rockwood Press, with artwork by Joseph Rajini Asir. All preorders can request a custom Dad-libs digital poster (with their responses), as seen below:
Preview of my mother is a mixed metaphor; available now
Praise for the chapbook:
SOPHIE HOWARTH, author of Everyday Wonder and co-founder of The School of Life
"Playful, moving and inventive poems that describe an ever-evolving love story between mother and daughter. Gupta is an astoundingly talented new poetic voice. Wholehearted and multifaceted, this is a glorious collection that celebrates the multitude of ways mother-daughter love can be expressed."
T. DE LOS REYES, author of And Yet Held
"In my mother is a mixed metaphor, Shivani Gupta refuses the tidy immigrant daughter narrative. Through turmeric-stained memories and long-distance voice notes, Gupta writes with startling specificity—moving between wit and wound—about loving her mother fiercely while choosing a life thousands of miles away. This is brown daughterhood as inquiry, a collection that insists we can be both like and unlike our mothers and still keep 'reaching, reaching, reaching.'"
ANUJA JAISWAL, mother, sister, niece, and writer
"This collection captures the essence of so many shared experiences between mothers and daughters, the roles we play and how women disappear in their roles. It is also about witnessing your mother being capable of an unbounded life. Most of all, this collection is exceptionally special to me because of who it’s about."
