This book gives them one—
and a way through.
There are places we live that don't have names.
Threshold poetry names them—and opens a door.
Threshold poetry is an original formal structure built around the space between two states of being— the place where one thing has not yet become another. Each poem centers on a named emotional or psychological state and holds it at its edge: not resolved, not abandoned, but witnessed.
Every threshold poem follows the same architecture. It names a state. It holds that state in tension with what it is not. It closes with a declaration: this state remains itself—until. The word "until" is not a promise. It is a door left open.
Across a full collection, forty-eight states are named. Forty-eight doors are opened. The repetition is not monotony—it is ritual. Each poem is complete on its own. Together, they become a map.
I created threshold poetry because I needed it and it didn't exist yet. I have stood in places that no one had language for—spaces between grief and living, between hope and its absence, between who I was and who I was becoming.
Language matters in those places. When we can name something, we can survive it. We can say: I am here. This is real. And this—this is until.
The form grew out of trauma-informed practice, out of lived experience, and out of a deep belief that people deserve not just to be heard, but to be given words when their own go quiet. This is not poetry about feeling. It is poetry that feels—and then stands still long enough for you to catch up.
Each poem names one state. The second line is always the same—a fixed point that holds steady no matter what surrounds it, like a hand on your shoulder while everything else shifts. The closing line returns to the named state and releases it forward with a single word: until.
The collection is organized in four movements, each one adjusting the quality of light. A reader can move through the whole arc, or open to any page and find their exact location. You find the state you are standing in, and you discover you are not the first person to stand there.
Threshold poetry is for anyone who has ever been somewhere they couldn't describe. Every word is original. Every silence belongs to both the poet and the reader. This book is my hand when you can't find one.
April Shandena writes from inside difficult places—not looking back on them, but standing inside them with a light. Her work is rooted in lived experience, in peer practice, and in the deep belief that language can do what nothing else can: reach someone in the dark and say I was here too.
She is the co-founder and VP of Higher Ground Outreach Inc., a nonprofit building community-rooted recovery and healing infrastructure in Georgetown, Delaware. She created HopeWoven, a narrative-first therapeutic curriculum, and is developing the Verdant Grove Healing Campus—a land-based, elemental approach to community healing.
Threshold poetry is her original literary form. until……… is her debut collection. The poems were written to be held, not just read.
She is also a painter, bookbinder, 3D printing artist, and gardener. All of it is the same work.
Whether you're a reader, a collaborator, a bookseller,
or someone standing at a threshold—we'd like to hear from you.
Crow & Lantern Press
Georgetown, Delaware
crowandlanternpress@gmail.com
These poems were written to be held, not just read. If something in these pages landed— if you found a threshold you recognized—we would be honored to hold your story. Submissions may, with your permission, become part of the living record of this work.
By sharing, you give Crow & Lantern Press permission to hold your words. Nothing will be shared publicly without your direct consent.