In her debut, Quatmann explores twin tragedies with evocative language, inviting readers into an intimate journey of grief.






Yoke

Caiti Quatmann (she/they) is a disabled and queer writer. She is the author of Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her work is forthcoming or appeared in Rattle, North Dakota Quarterly, the Bitchin’ Kitsch, Neologism Poetry Journal, Little Old Lady Comedy, and others. Find her online @CaitiTalks.

50 words

Selected as the Editor’s Choice for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2024,

The Boardroom at the Edge of the Field

"Listen, Bernard, if you would allow me moment of your time. I beg you, do not swipe left on my manuscript like it's outdated meme! This is not just any tale; it is such reflection of art—real art, you see—though perhaps not what you might expect..."

Vladimir Nabokov Pitches Lolita to An Agent

Breastfeeding in Brooklyn

We Regret to Inform You That Your Home Is Toast (And We Won’t Be Paying to Rebuild It) — Little Old Lady 

All the Lives I’ll Never Live

What if I Had Moved to New York?

In Another Life Where We Were Together

If I’d Never Left Home

Child-Free

I Had a Dream

What if I Had Joined the Peace Corps Instead?

The Lost Art of Phone Calls

How to Stay

Already Gone

We Regret to Inform You That Your Home Is Toast (And We Won’t Be Paying to Rebuild It)

Published Nov. 15, 2024, Issue 6
Nominated for pushcart prize

Excerpt:
"It’s warming, and all my ice is so thin
that it’s impossible to shield the past
from my inevitable future. Every morning"

Greetings from Glacier National Park

Samfiftyfour Issue X, Sept 2024

"When they fill the five-gallon bucket / with the hose, one-by-one dipping in / their heads..." 


Mississippi

Writing in a Woman's Voice, Oct 28, 2024. 

"Missing You Is Hard to Master” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

"Unbeknownst to us, you vanished,
absent. Absent from lectures... "

Missing You Is Hard to Master

Publisher Nov. 15, 2024 in Issue 6

Excerpt:
"Write a step by step on
        how you met the love of your life:" 

Notes App Fragments 

After Tragedy

HNDL Mag, Issue 4. Sept 2024
Nominated for pushcart prize 

"A cheese market visited me dreams / narrated my son in his nightly gambit" 

Cheese Market

Published Nov. 6, 2024

"they are oblivious with their cheerful
yellow blooms. They sway & nod
& scatter their seeds with the complacency
of the uninformed, of petals wide open,
of roots shallowly anchored in the soil." 

The dandelions that grow in our field

Published Nov. 6, 2024

"once the words I swallow reach my belly,
they begin to burn. There is no way to release them
without igniting everything around me." 

The thing about it is 

"The Wild” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

" After the storm, the forest exhales;
pine needles glisten like a thousand tiny mirrors,

reflecting fragments of a sky, newly washed." 

Retreating

Published Nov. 6, 2025

"the quiet depths of 3 AM, you finally lift
the veil you’ve held all day, the weight

of avoidance, a shadow growing, whispering
doubts that a black woman would never rise,

no not in this country, not in this life." 

The Morning After

Published Nov. 6, 2024

"On a muggy morning,
I stepped out
to collect the trash
bin, already sweating
through my shirt..." 

My neighbor, a robust man of seventy,
leaned over his fence, eyes bright
with a self-satisfied gleam. He started talking,"

This Is Why We Are Furious 

Praying

The Closed Eye Open, 2024—Issue XI, p. 28, April, 2024

"At this moment, I am but a suburb caught in a thunderstorm. On the cul-de-sac, the street lamps flicker, their dim glow unsure..." 

Suburbia in a Thunderstorm 

HNDL Mag, Issue 4. Sept 2024

"They say honey never spoils / sealed in jars, amber thick—it waits" 

Is Honey a Time Capsule 

Writing in a Woman's Voice, Sept 9, 2024. 

"The Wild” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

"In the quiet after rain, time whispers.
It's in the way the mist clings to the mountains--" 

The Wild

"Blinding lights and pain. The room was alive with chaos, as if an unseen beast was ripping her open." 

A Birth Story

Issue 003, Joy: In Reflection, p. 34, Spring 2024

Blackout poem and digital collage

"Before verse formed for me, there was nothing..."


Before Verse

Issue 003, Joy: In Connection, p. 36, Spring 2024

Untitled Confetti

"Sunlight pours into the classroom.casting dappled shadows through the tomato plant snaking up the walls. There's a hum of activity, but it's not the orchestrated actions one might associate with a conventional school. At one table, I'm engrossed..."

The Transformative Power of Being Present: An Adult’s Role in Self-Directed Learning

Issue 02, p. 18,  December 2023

Drawn by the allure of twilight, 
I step into the desert's heart. 

The sun, our fierce deity,
relinquishes the day;

Desert Ocean

Issue 002, p. 27, Nov. 20, 2023

"I thought shopping was simple... mundane..." 

Errands

Issue 002, p. 41-42 Nov. 20, 2023

"... Society demands a performance, a justification of our struggles, especially when we don't neatly fit into preconceived boxes." 

The Weight of Visibility 

Issue 003, Nov, 13, 2023

"Eli, yesterday I found  / a house with no doors.  / Not one. Imagine that!

And the oddity is that I went  / around, waiting for a break  / in the bricks, but there was none..."

Correspondence

Issue 003, Nov. 13, 2023

"Patterns, seemingly random / at first glance, hide Euclidean / stories and universal truths. "

Cosmic Spill

Issue 003, Nov, 13, 2023

"Let me tell you of the cobblestone street I wandered upon just yesterday. Uneven, jagged, and riddled with patterns that contradict the very notion of order."

Counting

Published in Issue 003, Nov. 13, 2023

"my brain attempts to take in / the crowded voices and entangled /choices within my biological / wiring...."

Am I AI?

Issue 07, August 28, 2023, p. 03
"I think, if we're are lucky, we find many soulmates in our lifetime..." 

Soulmates 

Issue 1: Summer 2023, p. 8
"And for my next magic trick, I shall make a steaming cup of tea completely vanish..." 

Abracadabra

Issue #2, July 21, 2023, p. 03
"Sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my daughter..." 

Return of the Croup

Issue 9, July 2023, pp. 20-21 
"Can you ~~reed~~ read my new ~~porn~~ poem?" 

Typos, Autocorrects, and Freudian Slips

"I have a confession: even as an ardent proponent of self-directed education and unschooling, I still constantly get drawn into the larger societal messages about education. The relentless stream of messages suggesting I need to prepare my kids..." 

What’s the Damn Rush? Embracing the Present Instead of Preparing for the Future

HNDL Mag: Bold & Reflective Issue 2. Sept 2024

"Even though I know         it's only fleeting
I want to feel more           than the numbing pain" 

I Want To Feel Something Good

Issue 3, Joy: In Simplicity, p. 16,Spring 2024

"Among the overlapping sounds
and sensations, normally too much
for my nervous system, 
I find an unusual calm"

I Always Want to Remember My Family Like This

Issue 003, July 2023, p. 14
"There's no guide for mourning the living..." 

Mother Wound

June 2023, Batch 53
"When you're away... / when does your flight get in?" 

Texts to My Husband: Work Trip

June 2023, Batch 53
"Water flows from the bite-marked spout.." 

Texts to My Husband: Bath

Issue #1.5, October 29, 2023, p. 10-12
"His dusty attic studio that housed /  his humble drafting table held an old / sketchbook..." 


The Sketchbook

Issue 1.5, Oct. 2023, p. 46-46
"As the cold whisper of midnight descended /she wept..." 

Grief's Bloom

Issue 1: Summer 2023, p. 44
"Dear Ritalin, my savings grace..." 

Ode to Ritalin

Issue 1: Summer 2023, p. 16, 26, 64, 77, 86
"No longer shall I measure my days in the glossy folds of magazines..." 

5 Things I'm Throwing Away for Good

Issue 002, p. 66, Nov. 20, 2023

"It's not about perfection everyday..." 

Neurodivergent 

Issue 2.5 HNDL BAR (Bold & Reflective), p. 38, Spring 2024

"The day after my departure from the asylum, 
I found myself upstairs, brushing my teeth"

My First Morning Home

Issue 2.5 HNDL BAR (Bold & Reflective), p. 54, Spring 2024

"Carry me to that realm of sensation,
That liminal space of virtue and vice,
Where we speak with dancing fingers precise"

Divine Dance

Issue 3, Joy: In Authenticity, p. 35, Spring 2024

"If joy is sorrow unmasked, then 
it is difficult to know what to do 

with so much happiness.
It's invigorating to embrace "

If Joy is Sorrow Unmaksed

HNDL Mag: HNDL with Caution, Issue 2. Oct 2024

TW: birth trauma, medical trauma

Caiti Quatmann

Books

Selected work