Books

I am the author of several collections of poetry, including the recently released SAINT OF (White Stag Publishing, 2025), Nympholepsy (Inside the Castle, 2018, co-authored by Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), Apocryphal (Noctuary Press, 2014, out of print but available here for free online), and Andalucia, a chapbook (Poetry Society of New York, 2011).

my newest book — saint of

SAINT OF is a gilded exploration of hunger—hunger for the erotic, the ancestral, the forbidden, divinity, and reclamation. Exploring themes of grief, illness, and generational trauma woven alongside sensuality and beauty, this collection is both an invocation of the saints and a declaration of self.

ORDER via WHITE STAG PUBLISHING (for US)
ORDER via ASTERISM BOOKS (for international orders)
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Select poems from SAINT OF

• saint of salvage at Moria Magazine of Woodbury University

• saint of avowal at Every Day Poems

• saint of sepulture at Lover’s Eye Press

• saint of orphaned girls at Eunoia Review

• saint of precipice at Pink Disco

• saint of the before times at Every Day Poems

• saint of pentralia at The Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester
  

WORDS ABOUT SAINT OF

“A beautiful, desperate vampire (and Mobius strip) of a book…It is a longing for the baroque. There is a stigma attached to the baroque as a kind of indulgence that somehow belies artistic evolution, as if sensuality must necessarily run its course and lead to some kind of cooling resignation, or somber grace/ ‘realism.’ But why should this be? And what is resignation? It’s the antithesis of yearning, and yearning is exactly what makes Basile’s work so spellbinding.— Lisa A. Flowers

“Lisa Marie Basile’s poetry hinges on the secrecy of the mind, often in its hidden eroticism and darker complexities….As a poet, Basile’s transformation of personal pain into liberty of the field of language restores her independence as both a female in a world of the male gaze, and a child searching for the maternal love lost in the past.” — Compulsive Reader

“Basile’s characteristic lush and textured language shines in a collection in which poetic form mirrors poetic theme in a satisfying way. Read Saint Of and let the eternal summer drag you under—delicious and dark.” — Jezmina Von Thiele, Lover’s Eye Press

“Sophisticated turns of phrase depict a time much older than the hand that wrote them…Basile’s tendency towards darkness is freeing somehow, preparative in some way. For these things come to us all, and she articulates it with ease: ‘The maggots roosting in the hollow.’ Such deep sadness seems effortless. I respect that. The skill in her words is profound.” — Lisa Natasha Wetton, Everybody’s Reviewing

“Saint Of’s poems brim with a desire to be found, to belong, to be. Burning with a primal ache for love, one feels the quest for origin in piece after piece. Throughout the collection, that universal elusive question prevails: Who am I? It reads like a prayer, a haunting, but also a spell.” — Nicole Monaghan, Ovunque Siamo

“In Saint Of, there’s a longing for hybridity, for being not merely one thing but all of the things at once—and all as a part of a healing process, a putting oneself back together again after trauma.” — Caroline Hagood

“Each poem tells a story not of a saint but a life story, event, or remembrance. Using “saint of” for each title implies a sacredness to life, even when it’s difficult to see the sacred in something, like ruination or self-defeat. Nevertheless, Basile finds it, even in life’s gaps.” — Tweetspeak Poetry

“SAINT OF went for the jugular in terms of the very foundations through which so many of us see the world…This is a book about starting out in ruin and in want and playing by different rules to achieve wholeness. This is a book where ruin in fact becomes ‘the mother of wholeness,’ and where ‘Being good / isn't the only way to be good...’ A profoundly world-building and redemptive articulation, this collection renders transgression as an alchemical process.” — Kelly Egan, Goodreads

”Lisa Marie Basile’s writing has reckoned with mysticism, transcendence, and religious iconography over the years. Publisher White Stag describes Basile’s new book saint of as “a gilded exploration of hunger—the hunger for the erotic, the ancestral, the forbidden, divinity, and hope.” — Vol 1, Brooklyn, ‘Book of the Month’

“From the whispers of orphaned girls to the confessions of burdened lovers, the poems weave a rich tapestry of human connection and longing. This book reminds us that even in the depths of despair, there is beauty to be found, and that the human spirit is capable of enduring even the most profound sorrows.” — Trista Edwards, author of Spectral Evidence

“The poetic imagery illustrates how tragedy and tradition can have a profound impact on a person's spirit, and the speaker's relationship with faith and family is intertwined with shame and longing: "These pews that have held my entire bloodline," the text reads. The phrase, "I ask, the devil that I am, for god," highlights the weight of faith that runs through families over the longterm. She acknowledges her own complicated sense of self by identifying with the “devil” even as she petitions god. This is a shattered sense of self, hovering between sin and salvation.” — Madeline Miller, Moria Online

SAINT OF on Goodreads | Reading from SAINT OF on YouTube

Release date: February 1, 2025 | White Stag Publishing | 979—8—990872—45—5
Email lisambasile @ gmail.com for review queries.