BOOKS
Vanity Twist is an existential exploration of non-normative love, loss, and desire. It has more questions than answers. It revels in “low” and “high” culture. It is a success and a failure, a celebration and a mourning.
The poetry collection toys with traditional forms and free verse to create a unique collection full of tension, which is articulated by a playful poetic voice. Self-acceptance is the main concern throughout. Ultimately, Vanity Twist is a reminder that you can find a path through trauma in poetry.
"Full of wonder, spontaneity, and heart-breaking candor, Vanity Twist explores the ways in which our desires do and don’t define us, how our first loves are often the most indelible, and how language itself might begin to heal the ruptures and fissures of a life lived on the move, if not on the run. With an eye as painterly as it is unflinching, Grinbergs delivers a singular testament to the human need for understanding and self-acceptance, but it is the voice, the page bursting with personality, that will keep me returning to these poems and eagerly awaiting the ones that will follow."
—James Kimbrell, author of Smote
"Vanity Twist is resplendent with images that shouldn't go together but do in the most miraculous fashion imaginable. Van Gogh is juxtaposed with drag queens, fish pie with a 'certain blond-haired boy,' and Zen Buddhism and geese skirt the dark edges of a consciousness trapped in an unwelcoming world. Always surprising, these poems give the reader a ringside seat at the technicolor circus that is Iain Grinbergs' mind. A stunning debut."
—Barbara Hamby, author of Holoholo
Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
—Emily Dickinson
INDIVIDUAL PUBLICATIONS
Poetry
“Wakulla,” Shō Poetry Journal, 2026 (forthcoming)
“Letter to Shunryū Suzuki (from Northampton, England),” The Dewdrop, 2025
“Letter to William Blake,” Screen Door Review, 2025 (forthcoming)
“Letter to Emily Dickinson,” Screen Door Review, 2025 (forthcoming)
“Letter to the Body After Francis Bacon,” Rogue Agent, 2025 (forthcoming)
“EMDR,” dadakuku, 2025
“Letter to Thom Yorke,” The Daily Drunk: Pop Culture That Pops, 2025
“Letter to Karen Walker,” South Florida Poetry Journal, 2025
“Letter to Jack McFarland,” South Florida Poetry Journal, 2025
“The Orangutan,” Eunoia Review, 2025
“Ode to Dorothy,” Eunoia Review, 2025
“The Black-headed Cardinal Beetle,” Eunoia Review, 2025
“Kachemak Bay,” Eunoia Review, 2025
“An Afternoon Bike Ride in NW D.C.,” Meridian, 2023
“G.I. Joe,” New Poetry from the Festival, Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, 2023
“Ode to the Chevy Blazer,” New Poetry from the Festival, Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, 2023
“Recipe,” New Poetry from the Festival, Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, 2023
“Watching Nigel Slater Cook on the TV,” New Poetry from the Festival, Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, 2023
“The Geese Are Back (in Town),” Jersey Devil Press, 2022
“Early morning in Tallahassee,” Juke Joint, 2022
“In the Dentist’s Office, D.C.,” Juke Joint, 2022
“Like Elton John selling boiled peanuts outside Seaside,” Juke Joint, 2022
“Cinderella Venting in a Letter to Someone,” Furtive Dalliance Literary Review, 2018
“Distractions, Arroyo Seco, New Mexico,” Furtive Dalliance Literary Review, 2018
“October,” Furtive Dalliance Literary Review, 2018
“Six Couplets, with Crabs,” Furtive Dalliance Literary Review, 2018
Fiction
“After Feeding the Ducks,” 50-Word Stories, 2025
“Bakewell Tarts,” Hotch Potch, 2025 (forthcoming)
“Violets,” FlashFlood, 2025
“Busted,” Ghost Parachute, 2022
“June,” Wilderness House Literary Review, 2021
“Daylilies,” Furtive Dalliance Literary Review, 2018
Nonfiction
“Operation,” The Pegasus Review: A Medical Literary Journal (Stanford), 2025 (forthcoming)
Reviews
“Docu-thriller ‘Collective’ chronicles grim nightclub fire disaster,” Tallahassee Democrat, 2020