Books

Accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Moises Camacho, Levine’s poem intrigues, and pulls the reader to a strange and fragile state of mind.

—Jason Renaud
Director, Mental Health Heath Association of Portland

I am thrilled to recommend Sherri Levine’s new collection of poetry. Through raw emotion and masterful use of language, she transforms private struggles into art that will resonate with readers. Discover her work—it will stay with you.

—Kevin Fitts
Executive Director, Oregon Mental Health Consumers Association

In Sherri Levine’s I Remember Not Sleeping time and space collapses like a star. This poem is good company for anyone who has struggled with mental health, for anyone who has felt alone, for anyone being bounced around in the sea of life. Which is to say, it’s a poem for all of us.

—Matthew Dickman
Author of Husbandry

A tour de force.

—Pattie Palmer-Baker
Portland Artist and Poet

If one of the aims of poetry is to condense our vast, contradictory, and beautiful world into the briefest of songs, Sherri Levine’s debut collection stands as a testament to its possibility. Each poem maps out the human heart, in all its internal conflicts, with precision and grace. From broken to sustainable relationships, fears of aging to cultural explorations, familial death to gender studies, these poems probe the many paradoxes of living with an open, curious mind and heart. There is great wisdom and honesty here, vulnerability and linguistic perception. This series of meditative poems simultaneously laments and celebrates life, grounding us in a familiar world that eventually open us up to something far greater.

—John Sibley Williams, author of 
As One Fire Consumes Another 
and Skin Memory

Part elegy, part love letter, part confrontation of self and others, Sherri Levine’s first full-length book of poetry traces an emotional journey in which she explores the often confounding mysteries of childhood as they evolve into the traumas and occasional joys of later life: a young woman’s confusion about men, about trust, about the nature of sanity. A difficult mother-daughter relationship resolves at the end of the mother’s life, and the mother becomes, in memory, “more beautiful.” Trouble, love, forgiveness. Isn’t this the way our lives go? Levine’s fine collection ponders these vital conundrums and provides a revelatory path toward understanding them.

—Andrea Hollander, author of 
Blue Mistaken for Sky 
and Landscape with Female Figure

With an artistic, tonal range, Levine’s fearless poems ricochet between captivating and inescapable. At heart, the allure is a strangeness and the energy relentless, as she fulfills with savvy two sections titled “Girl” (then) “Unleashed.” She knows where the journey ends and will not blink. As readers, we better not either. With humor sometimes subtle sometimes dark, images gorgeous or stunning, these poems travel twists and loops and satisfy as they land on sure feet.

—John C. Morrison, author of 
Monkey Island 
and Heaven of the Moment

A collection of voice poems, In These Voices, allows us to peek inside the lives of a variety of characters. Levine, through the magic of language, embodies a jilted lover, a worried husband, a young woman, a son, a granddaughter and even a squirrel.

Levine’s debut, In These Voices, deals in the charms and quirks of language, the vagaries of love and loss, and the confusions and wonders of life going by. It is a wise, delightful collection.

—Joe Wilkins, author of 
When We Were Birds,
winner of the 2017 Oregon Book Award in Poetry

From the first, brilliant poem to the last, tender one, In These Voices is a surprising joy ride.

—Pat Schnider,
author of Writing Along and With Others
and How the Light Gets In

Awards & Publications

Sherri Levine is a poet, educator, and mental health advocate who lives in Portland, Oregon. She recently was awarded the Patricia Ruth Banta Award which honors an indivdual who has made a significant contribution to Oregon Poetry awarded by the Oregon Poetry Association (OPA). Her poem, “Facedown,” won the Lois Cranston Memorial Prize. Sherri has won First Prize (Poet’s Choice) in the Biannual Contest and also The National Poetry Month Award (OPA) Her work has been published in many national and international jounrals and anthologies such as Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Calx, and The Jewish Literary Jounal. Her full-length poetry collection, Stealing Flowers from the Neighbors, (Kelsay Press, 2021) was an Alzheimer’s Author’s pick for their national book club. She published A Joy to See (Just a Lark Books, 2023), an ekphrastic poetry book of 30 prominent poets responding to her late mother, Kay Levine’s artwork. The next book she published, I Remember Not Sleeping, is an illustrated poetry book dedicated those struggling with mental illness or know someone who is. Her forthcoming anthology, Waking in the Blue: Poetry & Essays about Mental Health will be released in April 2027.

Awards & Recognitions

Patricia Ruth Banta Award, OPA, 2025

Winner of National Poetry Month award (OPA, 2025)

Poetry Moves [Season 13], Vancouver, WA

Poetry Moves [Season 25, Vancouver, WA]

Honorary Place, Tucson, Literary Festival, 2024

The Mineral School Artist’s Fellowship, Mineral, Washington (2024)

Poet’s First Choice Winner in Oregon Poetry Association Fall Contest 2017

Lois Cranston Memory Poetry Prize 2019

Honorary Mention Winner in Oregon Poetry Association Spring Contest 2019

Second Place Winner in Oregon Poetry Association Fall Contest 2020

Judge for Oregon Poetry Association Spring Contest 2022