Sugar Work
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The 2020 Alice James Award Editor's Choice
Longlisted for the 2022 Julie Suk Award
Featured in Poets & Writers Magazine's "Page One"
Recommended by The New York Times
"Marya's debut lands in the gorgeous, messy place where the sacred and profane overlap. Sugar Work has a compelling narrative bent and generous eyes, stunning in its southern reality and recognition of suffering and work. Marya is a psychologically astute poet, a bright new talent in touch with her own humanity and that of others--allowing strippers dignity on stage, and looking upon addicts and her own young self with nuance and compassion."
--Megan Mayhew Bergman
"There's something about Katie Marya's writing in Sugar Work that takes your breath away."
--Jordan Zachary, Southern Review of Books
"Whitman's image of the crescent moon 'carry[ing] its own full mother in its belly' could describe the creative labor in Katie Marya's debut collection. In Sugar Work, Marya captures the child's awe while carrying the mother as myth and memory. It's work, but sweet, the way any blues is sweet. As the child becomes an adult, her mother--imago now--weighs differently on the mind. These poems have a captivating intensity of beauty and care."
--Gregory Pardlo
