The Ones I Could Tell Anything

The Ones I Could Tell Anything / Mists of the Self is a luminous new collection from acclaimed poet Nina Rubinstein Alonso. With honesty, wit, and lyrical grace, Alonso traces the bonds of friendship and love, the fractures of loss, and the quiet brilliance of lives intertwined. The first section captures intimate portraits of confidants and companions—those rare people to whom we can “tell anything”—while the second drifts into the mythic and surreal, where ritual, dream, and ancient symbols reflect our deepest fears and desires. Alonso, whose work has appeared in Ploughshares, The New Yorker, and The American Poetry Review, writes poems that are both deeply personal and universally resonant. By blending lived experience with visionary imagination, she offers readers a journey through grief and wonder, memory and transformation—reminding us of the fragile, enduring light that connects us all.