Book Review: Feverdream (2026), a beautiful collection of poems by Renée Nicholson, illustrated by Sally Jane Brown
- Liz Publika
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
by #LizCampese
I feel like I've lived a fair amount of life, thus far. I've resided on opposite sides of the world; I've fallen in love and built a loving home; I've seen life start and end. And yet, having just finished Feverdream (2026), the soon-to-be-released collection of poems by Renée Nicholson, illustrated by Sally Jane Brown, I find myself aware of how much life I still have to live and how many experiences I have not yet had, nor can even fully imagine.
The book is organized into five thematic sections: Home, Body, Loss, Seasons, and Glow. Each feels personal yet somehow universal. Nicholson has been where I am now. But she's also ahead of me, reaching out and reporting back on insights found through experiences that are both beautiful and bearing. It's heartbreakingly honest, because so much of our society is based on masking both heartbreak and honesty.
Her honesty has roots: many of these poems began in a chemotherapy infusion clinic where Nicholson wrote alongside patients while her brother, Nate, underwent treatment for metastatic colon cancer. The practice — narrative medicine, built on attention, representation, and affiliation — shaped what she wrote and how she learned to receive other people's stories. She calls it "mutual beholding," and you can feel that quality of attention in every section.
In Home, Nicholson paints a picture of Appalachia I am personally familiar with. I can taste the apples she describes, vividly see the trees neither one of us can name, and sense the cold pockets in the lakes she swam in. I can feel her words. But Appalachia is not my home. It's hers, and in her mind it's bittersweet: a place of "such comfort, such burden.” Her poems sit inside this tension, making no attempt at resolving it.
Body is a personal account of experiences I cannot yet relate to — like the clinical wilderness of menopause — as well as those I can — like chronic illness and caring for family members that are slipping away. Sally Jane Brown's illustrations here, built from abstracted body-print backgrounds, add something candid, tactile, and grounding that quietly extends the conversation the poems are already having.
Loss hits hard and deep. "Floats" got me first — Nicholson making root beer floats at 3 a.m. for a brother who can no longer tell day from night. I imagine my own brother as I read this. But Loss also covers other parts of losing. "Supernova" is a connection to a hopeful past, her old pointe shoes from a life as a professional ballet dancer — "tiny explosions, pressure, faraway stars." "My Father's Pens" broke my heart as both a daughter and a writer.
I loved Seasons. "A Scorched Feeling" is as much about a psychological state as a physical one. I can very much relate to "Wintering," and how brisk cold fuels creative processes. But this section is also about time — the chronological structuring of our lives, as evidenced by "1972," which arrives at a simple, true conclusion: that the awful and the wonderful have always marched forward together, hand in hand.
The final section is Glow. "Improvisation" is simply delightful. "Rings of Saturn" had me hugging my dog as I sobbed into her fur, aware of how nothing lasts forever, no matter how much I may want to love her or this moment into permanence. I genuinely appreciate her love for her canine companion, who shows up in a few of the poems. But it’s also about mindfulness, being able to appreciate “Simple Gifts” and “Gratitude.”
Nicholson writes in her afterword that narrative medicine made her "a better version" of herself — a more attentive one. Reading Feverdream, I believe her. The book doesn't serve up resolutions or conclusions. It's just a beautiful way to document the human experience by making art. I started this collection thinking I was reading someone else's life. By the end, I was thinking about my own and the parts of it still ahead of me.
Note* This coverage was produced independently by Liz Campese and is featured on ARTpublika through a content partnership.