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What Is the Book About?

Delighting in “To Be” is a micro chapbook by Loralee Clark, published in November 2025 by Bottlecap Press.  This chapbook explores the ways we are changed as we delve into the process of dancing with words.  These poems provide advice for writers: enjoy the process; look beyond the obvious moment to more relevant truths; and remember there is beauty to be discovered all around us.

Clark reminds the reader of the importance of understanding the reasons you write, to provide yourself and others with support and impartiality, and to know that being stuck is an illusion. She tells us that with words, we create worlds—One word is a pomegranate: full of enough seeds to sow an entire orchard.

One of the poems, “The Path: Ways to Help A Creative,” has been nominated for a 2026 Pushcart Prize.

The Path: Ways to Help a Creative
--for Cara

Bring them water,
apply the salve.
Cut the wood and double it.
Sort the laundry.
Excuse the piled dishes their crusty excess.

Make the tea.
Add the sugar.
Welcome the sunlight and pull the weeds.
Rub the sore muscles.
Move the rock.
Fill the glass again and again.

When they judge
their work, themselves,
remind them
it’s not good or bad
it’s just
a part of the process.

Remind them
it’s difficult forging
your own path
without a model or mentor.

Weigh the grain, mill the flour.
Feed the starter
and begin again.

Bring them water.
© Loralee Clark

Delight

It’s the same as every small step
you take but
they call it “first” 
so it seems harder.

They separate,
categorize the steps:
brainstorming, prewriting, 
writing, revising

but really, it’s just
one foot in front of the other

answering questions 
which need to be asked.

Become a bee, dancing 
her information to others
delighting in the dance itself;

let’s not make it harder 
than it has to be.
© Loralee Clark

If you would like to purchase this micro chapbook,
click on the link below.

https://bottlecap.press/products/delilc

Author Biography
Loralee Clark has two chapbooks forthcoming: A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth (Dancing Girl Press, 2025) and Neolithic Imaginings: Mythical Explorations of the Unknown (Kelsay Press, 2026). Her first chapbook is Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025). Clark has been nominated for two 2026 Pushcart Prizes. She resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark. Her Substack, which focuses on the process of creativity, is nosuchthingasfailure.substack.com.