Size of Your Joy: Poems

For every woman who's ever held joy and sorrow in the same breath--this debut is a tender, powerful reminder that you are not alone​.

The Size of Your Joy is an intimate and empowering exploration of the complex and often contradictory experiences of womanhood, offering an unflinching look at how identity, resilience, and self-worth are shaped by the intersections of love, grief, and longing.

Through the birth of her daughter, the vital yet complicated relationships between the women in her life, and the realities of being a woman in the world, Powers reflects on how ideas of beauty, desire, and shame are quietly passed from one generation to the next, and what it takes to break those cycles. She examines the hunger--for belonging, autonomy, and joy--that women are taught to suppress, while imagining a path forward defined by liberation and self-acceptance.

A celebration of reclamation, The Size of Your Joy asks how we might carry both sorrow and joy, loss and love, as dual forces that shape the stories we inherit and the lives we choose to create. This collection invites readers to embrace joy not as the absence of struggle, but as an act of defiance and hope.

Author: Elise Powers
Publisher: Central Avenue Poetry
Published: 04/21/2026
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 7.96h x 5.21w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9781771684408


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 02/27/2026

About the Author
Elise Powers received a BA in English Literature from Western Washington University. Her poems reflect on identity, womanhood, and the ordinary moments that make up a life. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies including Gather and Only Poems, and has been shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize, awarded second place in the Black Horse Review Poetry Contest, and nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. She lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter, where she writes, collects sea glass, and savors life's tender joys. Find more of her work on Instagram @elisepowerspoet and on Substack at Two Raw Sugars.