Bottom Feeders

A vibrant and gritty debut from poet Arielle Hebert, Bottom Feeders is a queer coming-of-age collection set in late 2000s Florida, during the height of the opioid epidemic. Here, overdoses, red tide blooms, and hurricanes are as much a part of growing up as fleeting teenage desires, beach parties, and prom.

This is a landscape of glitter and grime, where young queer love is tested by the tides of addiction and recovery. The collection thrums with a sense of spectacle and surreality, accented by Sarasota's history as a circus town and Florida's deadly wildlife--alligators, needlefish, invasive snakes. The heat, humidity, and salt air of the Gulf become characters in their own right, as haunting as the love, grief, and loss found here. Despite the long shadows cast over these poems, there is beauty, friendship, chosen family, and hope in Bottom Feeders.

Author: Arielle Hebert
Publisher: Black Lawrence Press
Published: 06/16/2026
Pages: 82
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.27lbs
Size: 8.43h x 5.56w x 0.30d
ISBN: 9781625572196

About the Author
Arielle Hebert is a queer poet based in Durham, NC, with roots in Florida and Louisiana. She holds an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. She won the 2024 Lit/South Award for Poetry selected by Jericho Brown and was included in Best New Poets 2024, guest edited by Anders Carlson-Wee. Her work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Grist, Great River Review, Nimrod, and Redivider, among others. Bottom Feeders was a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award and is her debut poetry collection.