M. Rowan Nowak

05/18/2026

Both of my poetry collections are free as ebooks on Amazon for a few days only 💛

We Chose Repair
and
The Ritual of Living

Two companion collections on harm, healing, devotion, repair, recovery, and the quiet work of staying human.

Download them for yourself, gift them to a friend, or tuck them away for a slower day.

Free until May 21 at midnight PST.

Thank you for helping these poems travel!

We Chose Repair: https://a.co/d/0an7n1RG

The Ritual of Living: https://a.co/d/0cJK7G4U

We Chose Repair: Poems on Fracture, Complicity, and the Work of Repair (The Repair Arc)

04/18/2026

I’ve quietly set up a Buy Me a Coffee page. 2 poems from my upcoming projects are available to read there for free! I'd love to get your input!

It’s there for anyone who would like to help support my creative work, including new writing, bookmarks, special quote cards, and the practical costs of sending things out into the world. I’ll also be sharing some early glimpses of new work there along the way.

Please know there is absolutely no pressure! Reading my poems, sharing my work, and offering kind encouragement already mean a great deal to me.

Still, for those who’ve asked for a way to support more directly, this is now available.

Post by M. Rowan Nowak

04/12/2026

There is something deeply special about holding author copies in your hands for the first time.

The Ritual of Living is my second poetry collection, and seeing it arrive feels both tender and surreal. This book is quieter than my first. It is about devotion, recovery, marriage, friendship, and the practice of staying with a life as it is being rebuilt.

I am so excited to finally hold it in my hands!

The Ritual of Living
Poems on Devotion, Recovery, and the Practice of Staying
by M. Rowan Nowak
https://a.co/d/01y8fU6s

04/12/2026

My Author Copies are in! Everything is finally starting to feel real. Thank you all for your support!

04/12/2026

I tried to share a quiet poem today...
and Grace had other plans.

This piece is called “What Fills The Quiet” from The Ritual of Living - a small poem about silence, and what actually lives inside it.

Breath. Memory. Presence.
And sometimes it's a pup insisting on being included.

If you’ve been needing something gentle to read lately,
this book has been my way of sitting with that kind of quiet.

04/03/2026

If you have wisdom you wish someone had shared with you back then, I’d be so grateful to hear it. Your stories and reflections could help shape something meaningful.

In addition, here's a sneak peek at the cover art!

04/01/2026

I wrote "Back in the Pews" ( In We Chose Repair) out of a place I have known for a long time, since childhood. A place of struggle with my faith, my need for meaning, and my repeated attraction to the spiritual, even when I have been unable to name it with any one word.

While the imagery in this poem is certainly Christian because of my upbringing, the heart of the work is larger than any one religion. This is a poem for anyone who has ever been uncertain, searching, hurt, hopeful, or reaching for something holy.

Back in the Pews
-M. Rowan Nowak

After decades of refusing your name,
I am here again
sliding into the pew like a confession,
the air heavy with mahogany and frankincense,
old faith breathing through the walls.

I thought I would burn on entry.
That fire would recognize me.
Instead,
silence arrived first.
A wide, gentle hush.
Serenity settling on my shoulders
like hands that remember me.

I have been calling you
since I was five years old
calling into ceilings,
calling into folded hands,
calling until my voice learned how to disappear.

You never answered.
Or maybe I was too small to hear.

There was always a wall between us
stone and scripture and fear.
By twelve, I stopped believing in the knocking.
I called it losing faith,
but what I really believed
was that you had forsaken me,
forgotten my name,
let me fall out of your keeping.

So, I stopped searching for you.
I wandered.
I waited.
I listened for other gods.

None spoke.
And now I am here,
with nowhere left to go,
needing - desperately -
to believe someone is watching over me.

I need direction.
I need shelter.
I am afraid.

And my pride keeps my mouth shut,
even as the weight of my worry
presses the breath from my chest.

So, tell me
when will you speak?
Do you hear me when I whisper?
Do you exist when I close my eyes?
If you do,
send me a sign so obvious
I cannot argue with it.
Break through me.

Do I need cards and symbols and borrowed rituals
just to know you are near?

Or maybe
Maybe words are no longer required.

Maybe this is faith now:
two old friends, bruised, bloodied, but still breathing,
sitting together while rain sings
its steady hymn on a tin roof.
Listening without answers.
Staying without proof.

You and me.
Side by side.
Still here.
Back in the pews.

03/23/2026

I'm creating some fun bookmarks! Which one is your favorite?

03/22/2026