“Death is the great egret at the swamp, picking newly hatched green herons / from their cypress nest” (Manning 1). And so opens Katie Manning’s chapbook of prose poetry, 28,065 Nights (2020). Clearly autobiographical but also full of moments of profound introspection and discovery that transcend the merely personal, Manning’s chapbook has something to say to everyone, something with which any given reader will resonate. With intriguing (if sometimes seemingly morbid) titles such as “Your Death Explained in Birds,” “I Haven’t Eaten Fried Bolognia Since You Died,” and “Twenty Years Before You Died,” 28,065 Nights both invites and compels, both relates and imagines. As much as it addresses loss, however, Manning’s chapbook offers renewed understanding, even transformation.
In the penultimate poem of the collection, for example, the speaker of the piece (now grown) recounts that their grandparents indulged in vice and did not engage in spiritual practice. Terrified by the prospect of being eternally separated from them because of their unbelieving behavior (and, presumably, their rejection of the supernatural), the reader offers to take their place instead, believing their own childlike innocence will guarantee them entrance to heaven. However, in the next line, the speaker admits, “I was so sure then that I had a place to give away” (19). A welcome turn, the concluding (and nearly irreverent) line subverts the reader’s expectation, suggesting either that the speaker lost their childlike faith or even followed the path of the grandparents about whose eternal salvation they movingly worried. In this way, the poem becomes as much about the speaker (and, by extension, the author) as their grandparents.
Besides “Twenty Years Before You Died,” Manning’s chapbook is full of such refreshing surprises. In “Thomas Anthony,” for example, a fittingly (if wistfully) titled piece that deals with child mortality, the speaker addresses someone obviously close to them (perhaps a best friend), recalling the death of their mother’s newborn: “Your mom gave birth, but / the boy was blue” (7). Aside from the striking language (“more like a doll than a real baby”), the poem, like the penultimate piece, eschews the sentimental for the factual, the ordinary for the unexpected, concluding with the following haunting line: “I realized I’d never asked the baby’s name” (7).
In the hands of a poet of lesser skill, such meditations on loss might well stray into the elegiac. However, writing on such topics that risk sentimentality, which she takes obvious care to avoid, Manning shows as much artistry as courage in her vulnerability on the page. For those very reasons, 28,065 Nights is not only a rewarding read; it is an indispensable one.
Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which his debut chapbook, This is My Body, was published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.