Available September 1, 2025

In valentine’s day travelog, Sylvester Kwakye puzzles out an evolution and an education. What passes is time and a calendar, where we journey through charm and bitterness and back around to love (a word written only twice). Through these efficient and intimate poems, the poet captures the interiority of youth and memory. Praise for this little bloody valentine, yet another stellar chapbook from Whittle Micro-Press that hits like a suckerpunch.

—Rhienna Renée Guedry, author of Root Rot

What is not to love in this compact, heart-shaped collection of odes to mothers, absent fathers, shawarma and failed proposals. These are poems of joy and sadness and love in all its surprising forms. Tuck it into your pocket and don't wait until February: send this valentine to someone you love now.

—Christina Olson, author of The Anxiety Workbook

Sylvester Kwakye is a Ghanaian medical student and the author of the micro-chapbooks Ode to My Clinical Rotation (Ghost City Press, 2024) and How to Merchandise Crime (Stripes Literary Magazine, 2024), as well as a self-published collection of poetry and sketches titled Flying From Nectar to Hive (2023). Sylvester is a reader for Rowayat and a member of the Archipelago Collective. His works have appeared in Callaloo, Rising Phoenix Review, Amistad, and elsewhere.