In The Unfolding, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer startles us with the wonder, beauty, and sacred connection that blossom out of living wholeheartedly. Here the aching heart goes dancing. Written after the deaths of her son and father, these poems embody paradox—simultaneously somber and playful, brokenhearted and uplifting, even solemn and sexy. Trommer wades heart-deep in the broken world and finds in the rubble these honest, surprising invitations to praise.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available with the Ritual app. She is the author of Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice, and her poetry album, Dark Praise, explores “endarkenment,” available anywhere you listen to music.
She also co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award.
In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others through this platform to explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and love through the voice of poetry. Themes in her writings include parenting, gardening, the natural world, love, thriving and failure, grief, and daily life. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison.
Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning, and, if limited to one: Adjust.
“The Unfolding is the most powerful poetry collection I have ever read on grief and hope. With a language so deeply fluent in love, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer takes us into the deepest depths of what it means to be human – the beauty and the pain woven together seamlessly. I have long admired Rosemerry’s work. This is her most urgent collection yet. What a blessing to have read this masterpiece. What a privilege to walk an era where Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is writing and filling our lives with her beautiful, essential words. The Unfolding is a collection I am recommending to every poetry lover and reader I know.”
—Nikita Gill, author of The Girl and the Goddess and These Are the Words: fearless verse to find your voice
“Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s new collection of poems is saturated with dark beauty. There is an exquisite ache inside these poems, reminding us of the eternal embrace of love and loss. Wahtola Trommer blesses us with what she has gleaned from her prolonged vigil in the underworld, revealing a language riddled with a vulnerability that pierces our hearts. The Unfolding breaks us open to what it means to be human, what it means to love.”
—Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
“I didn’t realize how much I needed Rosemerry’s words to remind me of what most matters. This beautiful collection of poems reveals the power of saying Yes to life, the blessings of loving without holding back. Each offering is a powerful transmission: our spirit is invited forward to cherish—praise!—both the darkness and luminosity of existence. Especially in these shadowy times, The Unfolding is pure medicine for our tender, awakening hearts.”
— Tara Brach, author of Radical Compassion
“More than anyone I have ever encountered, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer meets each moment with unbridled curiosity and then, after paying close attention to all its contours, takes that moment into her arms and praises it. She praises quietly or full-throated, with equal measures of humility and authority, down to the darkest bones and out to the luminous edges of the known universe. This collection reconfigured me.”
— Mirabai Starr, Author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism
“I don’t know how she does it. In The Unfolding, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer opens her arms and heart and voice so wide, everything we experience comes inside to be held, to shine. The greatest grief, our unexpected nudges of memory, the way the world goes on despite everything—she finds a way to weave continuance, embodiment of love, which may change shape, but never disappears. “After I did not die the first minute,/I lived the next minute./More truly, life lived me.” These powerful poems are anthems of clarity and ultimate care.”
— Naomi Shihab Nye, Paterson Poetry Prize recipient and author of Everything Comes Next
“Like so many, I turn regularly to the work of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer when I need to believe again that the world is still a kind and welcoming place, alive with compassion and full of singing even in the darkest of times. From the very first poem of hers that I read, I was led more deeply into myself, suddenly feeling that so much was possible, the field wide-open once more. In this latest collection, The Unfolding, her words become ‘searchlights/that will help us find/what we don’t yet know/we are looking for,’ teaching us how to hold sorrow and beauty, grace and grief at the same time. Rosemerry is a fearless poet of the heart, and she possesses the exceedingly rare ability to turn even the simplest of moments into sacred lessons we can carry into our days, helping us to recognize—even when we’d rather turn away—the holiness that keeps unfolding at the center of our own very human lives.”
—James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage & Self-Compassion and editor of How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude & Hope
“The Unfolding re-opens our hearts and consciousness to the beauty of life and love, even amidst the shadows of devastating loss. Trommer warmly welcomes us into her orbit by offering us a glimpse into her most intimate memories and where we, too, can see ourselves and our own experiences. She fosters a loving solidarity for those who are searching for connection, particularly in the aftermath of loss. If you are searching, this is where you — your love, your bewilderment, and your aches — belong.”
— Joyal Mulheron, Founder of Evermore
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