In these urbane, emotionally charged poems, international strategy consultant, prizewinning children’s author, and human rights advocate Hollis Kurman is fearless in confronting crucial issues of our time. Whether she’s examining repercussions of war, migration, and personal history, or the joys of art and dance, there are few sociopolitical or cultural spaces that are not transformed by Kurman’s nimble craft and daring empathy. Her writing crosses borders and invites us to take a fresh and undaunted look at rites of passage, peril, and survival, always revealing “the surmise of light under doors.” Elegant and visceral in equal measure, this much anticipated debut collection conjures gifts where they are hardest to find.
Unlikely Skylight, Hollis Kurman
$18.00
ISBN: 9781962131100
Binding: Paperback
Published: April 15, 2025
What is the antidote to pain, where the cure for loss? In the ever-absence of easy answers, as “we wonder aloud who would/speak for us, tell our story,” Hollis Kurman offers a rare kind of witness: a poetry spare and exacting as “bones, the miracle/of their quiet folding/and holding, protruding”—keenly observed and precisely wrought to inscribe our most vulnerable truths. This is a ravishing first collection from a mature and unflinching voice “taking inventory,” “blading through/canebrakes and undergrowth,” and asserting our shared humanity in every word. —Betsy Andrews
I woke very early this morning, stole some quiet time and began the sunlight of Unlikely Skylight, sunlight indeed! These are poems that strike the heart with their quiet observations on love, loss, and the ever-present passage of time. —Sarah Ladipo Manyika
Hollis Kurman’s poetry is at once profoundly personal by experience, universal in its empathy, and created with exquisite gift and craft. She expresses the deepest existential human moments—love, abandonment, joy, distance, pain, connection— in verse simultaneously taut and flowing. This collection introduces us to a singular, accomplished, and deeply moving poetic voice. —Alan Charles Kors
Unlikely Skylight is an unforgettable poetry collection about family, fidelity, war, death, brain injury, migration, and even birds and dance. Set at museums, parties, hotels, the seaside, and in hospitals and clinics—in the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Poland—the poems are engaging, provocative, and wide-ranging. —Bryan R. Monte
Missing
It took her about three weeks not to hear them.
The songbirds had not followed her and her boxes
those few short miles down the mountain, not even the
oddly heavy box with her beloved in it, no longer whistling.
How much is a paved driveway worth in morning birdcalls? One
cardinal coloratura in its siren flash across low sky or the Morse coding
of mourning doves? She missed the insistence of tufted titmice as she set
the breakfast table and even the cartoon cackle and drum of the woodpeckers.
Without realizing, they had come to think of these birds as their birds, these
calls as theirs. He had his stones and she her blooms. But birdsong they
shared. As he faded, the coos and chirps made for good conversation
or distraction, American goldfinches squeaking sun into the quiet.
Only sparrows now, she said, not wanting to suggest ordinariness
or ingratitude for this perfect place with its mountain breezes.
Being this close to town is a mixed blessing, and when he
finally stopped whistling, he took the birdsong with him.
Hollis Kurman was born in New York City and educated at the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service (MSFS). In addition to her writing, Kurman has had a distinguished career as a management consultant advising major multinational companies in international growth strategy and innovation. She serves on the Human Rights Watch Global Advisory Council for Women’s Rights and the Fulbright Commission NL Board. She is Chairperson of the Ivy Circle, has served on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children Netherlands, and moderates literary and academic events. Her poems have appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Atlanta Review (International Poetry Competition finalist), Barrow Street, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Lilith, Ocean State Review, Phoebe, Rattle, and elsewhere. Kurman’s debut children’s picture book, Counting Kindness: Ten Ways to Welcome Refugee Children (Charlesbridge), is published in ten countries. The book is endorsed by Amnesty International, was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal (UK) 2021 and the DC Library Association Three Stars Book Award, and won a Northern Lights Book Award. The second book in the series, Counting in Green: 10 Little Ways to Help Our Big Planet, launched internationally in 2023, with a third book anticipated in 2026. She lives with her husband in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and can be found online at https://www.holliskurman.com.
