• Yield

Yield

by Jaime Forsythe

April 14, 2026 | ISBN 978-1-998408-39-9 | 72 Pages

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in the garden, you intoxicated on a towel, kicking

cooing in the clover, crickets insistent in skittering
heat. Letdown and foxes line the perimeter, perk

their ears with appetite. Letdown and every burner
left on high, door bolted from the inside.

In her third collection, Nova Scotian poet Jaime Forsythe has created an elegant long poem with Yield. In these dreamlike lines a mother faces the postpartum void from a porous house by the ocean as the veil between land and sea, and between being lost and being found, grows thinner. With repeated waves of couplets Forsythe brings the reader unforgettable images: a pom-pom that hardens into a sea urchin, an underwater dance club, a coast that melts into the sea. Delicately tracing the disorientation and dark edges of new motherhood, this is a collection that embraces beauty and ambiguity with a baby that roots for milk while what’s ancient – whether history or memory – floods in.

"Jaime Forsythe understands that (im)mortality lives on the laundry line, that what is tiny and short-lived is nonetheless consequential and noteworthy, and that caring for the earth and its creatures requires a noticing limned with love. In this series of brief, exquisite couplets the poet articulates both the sublime and banal elements of new motherhood, showing us that our drive for survival doesn't always end in sleep or catharsis. Here, the borders between body and brain, land and sea, and clinical and visceral are erased and redrawn with vigilance and deep care. This sometimes perilous, often gentle attunement to the other acts as an antidote to the skittering consciousness of our moment, a deep balm of attention that insists 'I matter, but I don’t.' For those who mother, and for those who were once mothered, Yield should be required reading." – Heather Birrell, author of Born and Float and Scurry

"Jaime Forsythe's Yield is a book invested in the nature of limits and thresholds – of our environments, bodies, selves. Fittingly, the poet casts her reflection on the postpartum period against the Maritime coastline, calling attention to the porousness and mystery of these twinned liminalities. Forsythe's command of language is impressive, at once lush and controlled. This is a stunning book-length poem, deeply atmospheric and rhythmic, its images crafted with heady precision." – Annick MacAskill, author of Votive and Shadow Blight

Events with Jaime Forsythe

    • Poetry in Motion: Jaime Forsythe + Yield (All Lit Up, 5-Aug-2026)
      "The postpartum year after my second child was born collided with the pandemic. This period made me hyper-aware of the stacked nature of time, the way that everything that has ever happened can be happening at once."
    • Yield (Hollay Ghadery, New Books Network, 10-Jun-26)
      In this NBN episode, Hollay Ghadery speaks with celebrated poet Jaime Forsythe about Yield—her new long poem published by Wolsak & Wynn, 2026.
    • Exploring poetic craft with Jaime Forsythe (Sheelagh Caygill, On Creative Writing, 25-May-2026)
      "I don’t see generative AI as providing benefits to creative writers. As an artistic tool, I just don’t find it very interesting."
    • April is National Poetry Month (Crystal Garrett, CTV Your Morning Atlantic, 7-Apr-2026)
      Crystal Garrett chats with poet Jaime Forsythe about her upcoming release, Yield.

    • Yield (Sara Hailstone, Sara Hailstone, 20-Jul-2026)
      "Forsythe elevates the humble textures of rural life into sites of wonder, reminding readers that belonging, imagination and renewal are often rooted not in grand revelations but in the quiet spaces we inhabit."
    • Yield by Jaime Forsythe (Wolsak & Wynn/Buckrider Books, 2026) (Catherine Owen, Brilliant Women Inc., 15-Jul-2026)
      "Yield's musical couplets enact a fusion, slanted towards the gentle surreal, of the land and the body as it mothers and struggles with postpartum discombobulations in which all she can 'offer is song.'"
    • Melanie Marttila : Yield, by Jaime Forsythe (Melanie Marttila, periodicities, 2-Jul-26)
      "Liminality and the juxtaposition of states play out in couplets. A gorgeous exploration of the postpartum experience."
    • TNQ National Poetry Month Reading List (Selena Mercuri, The New Quarterly, 1-Apr-2026)
      Lovely to see Jaime's poetry on this list.
    • 10 Amazing Books to Add to Your 2026 Reading Challenge (Michael Schmidt, River Street Writing, 7-Mar-2026)
      We're delighted to Jaime's poetry on this lovely list of books from River Street Writing.
    • MER Bookshelf – February 2026 (Melissa Joplin Higley, Mom Egg Review, 21-Feb-26)
      It's lovely to see Jaime Forsythe's gorgeous forthcoming collection Yield on the MER Bookshelf!
    • Most Anticipated: Our Spring 2026 Poetry Preview (49th Shelf, 11-Feb-2026)
      It's wonderful to see Jaime Forsythe's Yield on the 49th Shelf's Spring Poetry list!

  • Jaime Forsythe’s previous books are I Heard Something (Anvil Press, 2018) and Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press, 2012). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Arc, EVENT, Grain, The Malahat Review, Geist, The Ampersand Review and This Magazine, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki.