
How About Now
Poems
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · November 4, 2025
“Kate Baer's poems are so full of life—life as it is now, that I can hear them breathing.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Candid poems meet the unsettled business of aging, letting go, and becoming someone new.
- Themes
- Aging and time, Releasing children, Self-discovery
- Pacing
- Reflective
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
The AskingJane Hirshfield60% matchShares Women Poets
I Hope You RememberJosie Balka58% match
Good GriefBrianna Pastor51% match
Someone Somewhere MaybeSophie Diener55% match
With My Back to the WorldVictoria Chang56% matchShares American Poetry
One in a MillennialKate Kennedy50% match
Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at NightMorgan Parker54% matchShares American Poetry
Find Me As the Creature I AmEmily Jungmin Yoon53% matchShares Family Poems
For younger readers: Wearing My Mother's Heart, Voices in the Air, Unfiltered
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
“Kate Baer's poems are so full of life—life as it is now, that I can hear them breathing. I loved this book.”—Emma Straub "How About Now is a balm, a banister, and a battering ram. Her very best yet."—Catherine Newman The third full length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman. Renowned poet Kate Baer returns with a bold and compassionate collection that confronts the march of time in a shifting world.
Continue reading
With her trademark candor and curiosity, Baer explores what it means to grow older, to release children into the wildness of their own lives, and to reclaim the ever-evolving self. Raw, luminous, and urgent, this collection channels Baer’s own journey to middle age into poems that are profoundly intimate yet resound universally, identifying the beauty, resilience, and fragility that arrive in every stage of life. How About Now is a striking declaration of ongoing transformation and self-discovery. From the poet who has captured the heartbeat of the modern woman, this collection reaffirms Kate Baer’s place among the most vital voices of our era.
Life in Transition
Candid poems meet the unsettled business of aging, letting go, and becoming someone new.
Come here for
- Intimate reflections on middle age and a self still in motion
- Tenderness alongside candor
Expect
- A compassionate look at children finding their own lives
- Beauty and fragility in every stage of change
Where it sits
| Family Poems | 63% |
|---|---|
| American Poetry | 51% |
| Women Poets | 42% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Love Poetry
- Family Poems
- Women Poets
- Authors
- Kate Baer
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- November 4, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Aging and time · Releasing children · Self-discovery
- Reading lane
- Love Poetry