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Pulling from the symbolism of tarot cards and fairytales, this speculative horror poetry collection recenters the power from altars of ordinary gods back to our highest self.
Rooted in archetypes, magick, and myths, this poetry collection takes on real-world issues and feminist constraints, echoing the still-pertinent issues that women face today. Whether it’s a fresh take on the Persephone myth or recasting Medusa’s trite traditional depiction as a villain, these pages unfold with an unflinching look at love, grief, loss, risk, and finding strength when you need it the most.
This collection conjures hope and heartbreak in equal measure—a reminder that life is not meant to be lived neatly. Offerings for Ordinary Gods is a spell for celebrating the self, unleashing the witch in us all.
“Ali Trotta is a ferociously talented poet, and Offerings for Ordinary Gods is fierce, heartfelt, and full of marrow-deep wisdom—a poetry collection for the person unafraid to look in the mirror and greet their ghosts by name.” —Deanna Raybourn, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of a Certain Age
“This collection sings of hope and triumph, grief and defiance, and rouses the sleeping soul in its cage and sets it free. Through allusions to tarot, myth, and magic, Trotta unlocks our emotions and offers both a wakening and a reckoning.” —Kevin Hearne, New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Druid Chronicles
“Saturated with anger and sadness and everything in between, Offerings for Ordinary Gods is more than just a masterfully written collection of dark poetry. It arrives like a hammer-strike to the heart and is proof positive that Ali Trotta is one of the premier talents of our generation.” —Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Kin and Sour Candy
"Ali Trotta writes like if Nikita Gill told prophecies through the Tarot. Oracular, glintingly beautiful, stories snarled with truths." —Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth and Bram Stoker Award-winner
"Ali Trotta's Offerings for Ordinary Gods is a merge of witchcraft, myth, love potion, and grief memoir. Feminist, fervent, and at times forlorn, this poetry collection champions female figures who have been done dirty by history and myth’s trad narratives (as well as present day voices of the #MeToo movement), dispenses wisdom to the lonely and hurt from unexpected sources, and warns of dire curses awaiting those who do harm. Many of these poems are love poems, and none so deep as the love poems to a lost mother, for whom the poet’s yearning sounds the very depths of a siren’s sea." —C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author Saint Death’s Daughter
"The poems in this collection delight and dazzle—each poem infused with magic and fantasy, with darkness and whimsy, with witches and oracles, but also with something deeper and ultimately more vital: truth." —Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents
"Trotta's collection is dark and delectable, rich in myth and wry in its treatment. I'll be thinking of this for a long time." —Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
“All great art is a conversation, both within itself, and between itself and its audience. Offerings for Ordinary Gods has bridged that conversation in a whole new way, engaging the mystery of Tarot as a discourse partner. 'Do not take this life / for granted, leaning so far / into the cups that you forget / the word sky'—which begins the collection—is an excellent sample of the protective magic cast for readers who are ready to listen and speak to their own truths. Trotta is an exquisite caster of the kinds of spells we call poems.” —Fran Wilde, award-winning author of Clock, Star, Rose, Spine
"Ali Trotta uses the ancient tools of the witch to confront the modern ways a woman loses her power. Summoning fire, ghosts, monsters, the old goddesses (Artemis) and the new (Sylvia Plath), she takes that power back. Her incisive, furious language and steadfast commitment to telling it like it is make this collection riveting. It slid down like dark honey. When I finished, I felt like I'd participated in a spellcasting." —Sera Gamble, writer and showrunner of The Magicians, Supernatural, and YOU
"Ali Trotta's poems are powerful magic. She builds a new arcana of emotion as she evokes witchcraft, myth, and the monstrous. Wise, sly, devastating, angry, and gentle by turns, this is a collection to revisit." —Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author of Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds and The Frame-Up
Ali Trotta is a poet, writer, editor, word nerd, and unapologetic coffee addict. Her poetry has been published in Uncanny, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Small Wonders, The Deadlands, Fireside, Enchanted Living, Strange Horizons, Cicada, Nightmare, Mermaids Monthly, The Best of Uncanny Magazine (Subterranean Press), and several of the Rhysling Anthology compilations. She lives in New Jersey with a rescue cat named Thor, who is part Maine Coon and part gremlin.