Straight from the author, Rebecca Herz: “Locus of Control is a poetry collection written to make sense of a rapidly shifting world. In these poems, I trace the contours of neurodivergence, new motherhood, queer identity, and my work as a middle-school crisis counselor, weaving together the clinical language of therapy with the raw emotional undercurrent that rarely makes it into the office.

Across themes like countertransference, imposter syndrome, burnout, co-regulation, radical acceptance, and the intimate bewilderment of pregnancy through IVF, these poems explore what it means to hold hope for others while learning to hold it for myself.

In writing Locus of Control, poetry became the place where I could confess my uncertainty, and acknowledge the spiritual questions that trail my work: What does it mean to witness another person’s pain? What is the cost of caretaking? Where is the line between healing and harm? What remains of the self when we spend our days giving ourselves away?

At the same time, the personal and political never stay separate-fertility treatments alongside news alerts of disaster, Jewish identity intersecting with queer family-making, motherhood emerging through statistics, ultrasound screens, and wishful thinking.

Above all, Locus of Control is an invitation to find resonance within the ambiguity. These poems don’t attempt to fix or advise. They sit with uncertainty, and trust the reader to find themselves within the space that remains.

All proceeds support Jewish Queer Youth (JQY), honoring the young people who inspire my work and my belief that healing is possible, even when the path is nonlinear.”

Rebecca (N.) Herz is the author of Locus of Control (2026) and Homecoming and other poems (2023), Prolific Pulse LLC. Her publications include Spillwords, Social Justice Inks, Sinister Wisdom, The Madrigal, Fine Lines, and The Last Leaves. You can find her on Medium and Instagram @rebeccaherzpoet

What others have to say:

In Locus of Control, Rebecca Herz celebrates empathy in the poem “Radical Acceptance,” a rallying cry for making peace with the unknown. From chance encounters, daily interactions, and familial bonds, like becoming a parent, Locus of Control deftly explores society, from the good, the bad, the ugly, and all that is left unsaid, unanswered, or lost. Strikingly, these lost pieces are found in vivid language and a baby’s first touch, finding the silver lining, even if you don’t know the answer, because Locus of Control is about relishing in the centre of gravity despite blips and questions.

Lindsay Soberano Wilson, Poet and Author of Hoods of Motherhood and Breaking Up With the Cobalt Blues: Poems for Healing

In this new collection, Herz’s craft proves worthy of her ambitious aesthetic–that of blending opposites, of intertwining the philosophical and the ordinary. In similar fashion, her poetic voice rings with both confidence and vulnerability. I find the poems that track her speaker’s work as a school therapist–backlit by her own earlier struggles as a student–especially compelling.

Yehoshua November, Author of The Concealment of Endless Light

Locus of Control by Rebecca Herz is a witty melange of poetry and therapeutic insight. Rebecca Herz, a school-based therapist and autistic writer, weaves together personal experience, emotional depth, and psychological concepts to explore love, loss, neurodivergence, and healing. Rebecca’s poems celebrate variegated threads of human life- fertility struggles and burnout to self-compassion and radical acceptance. These poems illuminate what it means to be human in a world shaped by longing and resilience. It is a tender, intelligent, and restorative collection for readers seeking comfort, connection, and clarity.

Munmun Samanta, Author of Yellow Chrysanthemum

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