sky they yearned to call mine

sky they yearned to call mine is a collaborative collection of poetry by Brenda Beardsley and Liza Wolff-Francis that functions as a reshaping of grief in real time. Written as a poetic exchange, the book captures two voices responding to one another as they navigate personal loss alongside global catastrophe. The poems move through the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and the looming reversal of Roe v. Wade, grounding political upheaval in lived, bodily experience.Throughout the collection, the poets examine what they call the "architecture of pain," tracing parallels between the exploitation of the natural world and the systemic silencing of women. Mountains are mined, bodies legislated, and care work rendered invisible, even as mothers rise each morning to shoulder the unending labor of survival. The language is spare, urgent, and deeply attentive, refusing spectacle in favor of witness.Yet sky they yearned to call mine is not a book of despair. Against images of trauma and destruction, it insists on the sustaining power of small, precise moments: a bird's nest hatching, bulbs planted for a future season, love evolving rather than disappearing. The collection affirms survival as an active practice, one rooted in care, relationship, and voice. Ultimately, the book is a call to be seen as human, to reclaim agency in a fractured world, and to honor the preciousness of life that persists even under pressure.