Mega-Galaxies

Elizabeth J. Coleman’s Mega-Galaxies considers both the vastness and intimacy of what surrounds us, from our communities to the larger natural world.

Winner of the

2025 Adrift Chapbook Contest

Judged by Matthew Olzmann

“From a street-corner bodega to the Serengeti Plain to the ‘bell-jazz of our galaxy,’ these poems find meaning in all spaces. I appreciated these poems for their steady voice, precision, and how they often quietly wrestle with big questions of the human spirit. Chapbooks might be ‘small’ by definition, but this collection feels rich and expansive; the contents of Mega-Galaxies push us toward something vast and infinite.”

— Matthew Olzmann,

author of Constellation Route

“Elizabeth J. Coleman’s Mega-Galaxies invites us to look outward at the mysteries and possibilities of our world and beyond yet, why do I find myself constantly looking inward? Perceptive, curious, and brimming with surprising insight, Elizabeth J. Coleman’s poetry reminds us that beauty and wonder—if we truly want them—are within our reach.”

— Rigoberto Gonzalez,

author of To the Boy Who Was Night

“With tenderness and earned wisdom, Elizabeth Coleman’s poems are both intimate—‘I…look down at you lying there, lanky body…too tall for your hospital gown’—and expansive, gifting us galaxies within and without, real and imagined. What moves as well is the quiet of these poems, this poet’s way of seeing deeply, without hurry. Mega-Galaxies is alive with wonder.”

— Anne Marie Macari,

author of Amerigun

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Cover Illustration: Émile-Antoine Bayard & Alphonse de Neuville

Cover Engraving: Henri Théophile Hildibrand

Cover Coloring: spaceistheplace.art

Cover Design: James McNulty

Elizabeth J. Coleman is a poet, guitarist, and attorney. Elizabeth is the editor of Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press, 2019)(featuring a foreword from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and an activist guide by the Union of Concerned Scientists.) She is the author of two poetry collections: Proof (Spuyten Duyvil Press 2012), a University of Wisconsin Press prizes finalist, and The Fifth Generation (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016), as well as three chapbooks. Elizabeth translated into French the sonnet collection, Pythagoras in Love/Pythagore, Amoureux (Folded Word Press, 2016). Her poems appear in, among others, 32 Poems, Baltimore Review, Belleview Literary Review, Berkeley Literary Review, Cider Press Review, Colorado Review, and Rattle, and in numerous anthologies. The grandmother of four, Elizabeth lives with her husband in New York City.