"This stunning collection wakens in us the miracle and mystery of becoming being and belonging-common to our shared humanity across cultures. From mothers and soldiers war to birth Missouri to Iraq these poems are more than mere portraiture they are sculptural creating a three-dimensional sense of the many lives and places that Leonin has chiseled with her metaphorical muscle and carved with her deft language."-Richard Blanco Fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet

Mia Leonin is the author of two poetry collections Braid and Unraveling the Bed (Anhinga Press) and a memoir Havana and Other Missing Fathers (University of Arizona Press.) Leonin's poetry has been published in New Letters Guernica Prairie Schooner Alaska Quarterly Review Indiana Review Witness River Styx Chelsea and others. Leonin has been awarded fellowships from the State of Florida Department of Cultural Affairs and grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

"This stunning collection wakens in us the miracle and mystery of becoming being and belonging-common to our shared humanity across cultures. From mothers and soldiers war to birth Missouri to Iraq these poems are more than mere portraiture they are sculptural creating a three-dimensional sense of the many lives and places that Leonin has chiseled with her metaphorical muscle and carved with her deft language."-Richard Blanco Fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet

"Mia Leonin's Chance Born begins with the birth of her daughter a moment which launches this collection of poems into profound questions about relations-children and the worlds of want and violence words and the redemptive power of language identity without the fabric of family. Visceral lyrical and metaphorical these poems radiate-like the intricate branches of a marvelous family tree." -Valerie Martinez author of Each and Her