Stellar

Finishing Line Press, December 2021

...In a voice that is always urgent and intimate, Palmer writes beautifully of longing and mystery... In this disorienting time, it is so wonderful to read a poet who helps us understand better where we stand... "Yes," she writes, "there is sand here. But water too."...

- Austin Smith

There is a dreamlike quality in the way the poems of Stellar summon reverie from the natural world. Esther Lim Palmer’s language is rhythmic and reverential, engaging the reader with a quiet but profound sense of wonder...Hovering between the real and imagined landscape, Palmer’s skill is like a sleight-of-hand, her poetry a subtle and lyrical vehicle for unexpected rewards. Her magic comes in as “the wind leaves words outside the window/cracked open; words like invisible gifts."

- Mindy Kronenberg

Janus

Finishing Line Press, September 2020

Janus, the debut poetry collection from emerging Bay Area writer Esther Lim Palmer, is an evocative exploration into the ever-evolving, and often incongruous, realms of daughterhood, marriage, and motherhood.

Like the ancient god of beginnings and endings, Esther Lim Palmer’s poetry looks to the past and the future in her beautiful debut collection Janus. Exploring the themes of childhood, family, and marriage, Palmer’s poems are an honest look at one modern woman’s pathway to self-discovery, growth, and acceptance: “Here, now./ Hear, now,/ a swarm of hope—/ a rising hum.”

- Leah Huete Maines