Fall Risk

"It's so seldom a book of poems can contain both love poems and acceptance of grief. Take Stacey's poems to a couch, curl under your great-grandmother's quilt, and understand love and loss are one."

-Nikki Giovanni

"Lawrence's first collection of poems, Fall Risk, renders, in beautiful and precise language, a testament to the human capacity for endurance and survival. At times intimate, at times cinematic, these are moving pieces marked by the poet's ability to capture us with fresh and brilliant detail, as in 'Therapy, ' where we encounter a 'large lone goldfish/orange like an/American president' or in 'Christmas in England' where 'silverware glints like dinoflagellates/in a dark lagoon.' A work of great intimacy and individuality."

-Catherine Doty

"The poems of Fall Risk are beautiful and brutal at once. Lawrence is able to corral presence and absence the physicality of loss in poem after poem. Unsparing in its imagery, this collection tergiversates between nuance and grit, creating a stunning music and a powerful experience a testament to what it's like to continue to live. I am glad to have discovered Lawrence's work through this book."

-BJ Ward

A young widow and cancer survivor, Stacey Z Lawrence is a veteran public high school teacher of Poetry, Creative Writing & Drama. Her work can be seen in The Comstock Review, Eunoia Review, Flora Fiction, Broad River Review, Vita Brevis, Dream Noir & others. She was both long- & short-listed for the 2019 & 2021 Fish Prize in Poetry, judged by Billy Collins. Stacey has a BA in Drama from William Paterson University, an MA in English & MAT in Speech & Theater from Montclair State University & was awarded a fellowship to the Robert Frost House in 2016. She was a coach & mentor for the national PoetryOutLoud competition & the NJ Governor's Awards. Stacey co-founded the drama company Stage Right Productions & was director of the social action performance troupe Impact Theater. In 2012 she worked with playwright Naomi Patz to direct the debut production of Karel Svenk's devastating Holocaust parody, The Last Cyclist. She is the creator of student programs The Write Stuff & Write in the Wood & the former lead singer of the bands, Test Pattern & Three In Motion. An avid hiker, Stacey has a writing cottage in the Catskill mountains. She is the mother of 2 incredible daughters & 4 cool cats. Fall Risk is her first book.