Six kinds of love give this poetry collection its shape, from family and friendship to love that went wrong or went missing. Josie Balka's second collection moves among all of them.

Readical Key Points

• Eighty poems on six kinds of love: familial, toxic, romantic, friendship, self-love and lost love, according to the publisher
• Some poems were first shared with the author's online following; others appear here for the first time
• An instant national bestseller, according to the publisher
• Hardcover, 192 pages, Simon Element, 2025

Balka's poems cover the attachments that shape a life: the family someone is born into, friends kept for years, romantic partners, relationships that turned toxic, the practice of self-love, and people who are gone. Many of her poems first reached readers as recordings she posted online, and this book gathers some of those alongside poems new to this collection.

The collection follows her first book of poems, I Hope You Remember. It suits readers who know her work from social media, readers new to contemporary love poetry, and anyone choosing a gift for a friend in a new romance or after a breakup. Balka treats a friendship or a family bond as a love story in its own right.

About the Author

Josie Balka is a voiceover artist and poet with a diploma in radio, television and film from Niagara College. She has worked as an on-air personality for North American media companies and is the New York Times bestselling author of I Hope You Remember.

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