Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by Northern Illinois poets. This week’s poet is Anna Jollymore.
Jollymore debuted her book Words for Becoming in 2025. Her work explores the intricate process of personal evolution, weaving together observation and introspection with tender precision and bone-dry wit. Jollymore is a born and bred Midwesterner who traded the sheep and cornfields of Iowa for the bustling cultural hub of Chicago. She has recently settled in Rockford, Illinois, and said she has been blown away by the city’s vibrant arts and literary scene. With a background in both linguistics and applied mythology, Jollymore finds inspiration by drawing parallels between the mythic and the mundane— the extraordinary elegance of nature, spirit, and archetypal story that somehow manages to emerge again and again from the doom and dross of our small daily lives. Here’s her poem “Everything I Brought Home from the Mountains.”
Back home!
And excited to unpack
Everything I brought back from the mountains
Listening to the spring birds trill
A peripheral sensation creeps forward
And I know I’m not the same person
I was when I left home
And my tongue is molting it’s winter coat
Like a young deer in rutting season
All patchy with raw bits
And fresh pink skin emerging gingerly
It is both strange and specific
And from this stillness I intend
To re-emerge slowly
Tenderly
Myself
Eyelids opening
Like sunny daffodils
Ragged breath
April rain
And an intention to let
Only jewels fall from my mouth
For a season
