Introducing my poetry collection, A Beau’s Bouquet, and its companion couples diary, Between Us.

There is something wonderfully peculiar about love.

It can make the most articulate among us stumble over our words. It can turn an ordinary Tuesday into something worth remembering. It can inspire grand gestures, quiet reflections, ridiculous fantasies, and the occasional poem that probably should have remained between you and your journal.

And sometimes, if you’re fortunate, it inspires an entire collection.

I am delighted (and perhaps a little bashful) to introduce Besotted: A Beau’s Bouquet, my new collection of poetry, and Besotted: Between Us, a companion couples diary designed to turn reading about love into conversations about it.

I’ve always been fascinated by the language of affection. Not simply the declaration of love, but the peculiar ways we experience, express, resist, imagine, and sometimes misunderstand it.

Love has a vocabulary all its own.

Sometimes it is botanical. Sometimes chemical. Sometimes sensual. Sometimes silly. And occasionally, it is so deliciously absurd that the only reasonable response is to write a poem.

A Beau’s Bouquet gathers those expressions into a literary arrangement of longing, flirtation, vulnerability, desire, humor, and tenderness.

Like flowers in a bouquet, the poems have different personalities. Some are delicate. Others are bold. A few may have thorns.

There is Petrichor, a title borrowed from the earthy fragrance that follows rainfall. There is NPK — The Chemistry of Enough, which draws upon the language of nourishment. There are poems like I’ll Wear Blue for You, Nightcap, and Dinner at My Place, each offering its own invitation into the delightful complications of attraction and intimacy.

As someone whose life is deeply rooted in science and nature, I suppose it was inevitable that even my romantic imagination would find its way into the garden.

After all, what is love if not a little chemistry, a little ecology, and a whole lot of unpredictable growth?

I adore the word besotted.

It feels wonderfully old-fashioned and just a little mischievous. It describes that state of being utterly captivated by someone or something. The kind of affection that interrupts your thoughts, inspires unexpected smiles, and makes otherwise sensible people behave in beautifully unreasonable ways.

There is something liberating about allowing ourselves to be enchanted.

We live in a world that often rewards restraint, efficiency, productivity, and emotional composure. Yet romance asks us to make room for wonder. To be curious. To be vulnerable. To risk a little foolishness in pursuit of connection.

I wanted to write something that celebrated that experience without pretending love is always tidy, predictable, or even particularly sensible.

Because sometimes love is profound.

And sometimes it’s just plain fun.

As I worked on this collection, another idea began to blossom.

What if the poems didn’t have to end when the reader turned the page?

What if they could become the beginning of a conversation?

That question inspired Besotted: Between Us, a companion couples diary.

Unlike a traditional journal, Between Us is designed for two people to participate in a shared experience. Its side-by-side journaling format creates room for each partner to reflect on the same prompts, offering two perspectives on the relationship they are creating together.

The pages invite couples to explore memories, affection, communication, intimacy, curiosity, and the everyday experiences that shape their connection.

And throughout the diary, readers are encouraged to return to selected poems from A Beau’s Bouquet, using poetry as an invitation to reflect, laugh, reminisce, or discover something new about one another.

I love the idea of two people reading the same words and finding entirely different meanings.

Perhaps one remembers a first date. The other remembers the moment they realized the relationship had become something more.

Perhaps a question produces a surprising confession, a shared laugh, or an overdue conversation.

The point isn’t to arrive at identical answers.

It’s to make room for both voices.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is that meaningful connection deserves more than our leftover attention.

We make appointments for work, schedule meetings, organize vacations, and plan nearly every other aspect of our lives. Yet we sometimes expect our most intimate relationships to flourish without the same intentional care.

Between Us offers a gentle invitation to change that.

Pour something lovely. Put the phones away. Find a comfortable place to sit together. Read a poem. Answer a question. Listen to each other.

You don’t have to be newly in love. You don’t have to have everything figured out. You certainly don’t have to be a poet.

You simply have to be willing to participate.

And perhaps that’s the most romantic gesture of all: choosing to remain curious about someone you think you already know.

Creating Besotted has been a delightful departure from some of the more public-facing work that occupies my days.

So much of my professional life involves science, environmental advocacy, education, public policy, and the pursuit of a healthier, more equitable world.

But I have never believed we must confine ourselves to a single expression of who we are.

I can be a scientist and a romantic. An advocate and a daydreamer. A woman who studies ecosystems and still finds herself utterly fascinated by the chemistry between two people.

There is room for all of it.

This collection is one more expression of that curiosity.

It is also a reminder that creativity need not always serve a grand purpose. Sometimes we create simply because something delights us. Because a phrase refuses to leave us alone. Because an idea makes us smile. Because beauty, playfulness, and pleasure deserve a little space in our lives.

And because sometimes a bouquet of words is just as lovely as a bouquet of flowers.

My hope is that A Beau’s Bouquet finds its way into the hands of people who enjoy language, appreciate a little romantic mischief, and aren’t afraid to feel something.

And I hope Between Us finds its way onto nightstands, coffee tables, weekend getaways, and into the quiet moments when two people decide to give each other their undivided attention.

You can enjoy the poetry on its own, explore the diary together, or pair the two for a more intimate experience.

Whether you’re besotted with someone special, rediscovering the person beside you, or simply in love with the idea of love, there is something here for you.

May it make you smile, blush, reminisce, and perhaps fall in love with words all over again.

With a little whimsy and a whole lot of affection,

Kels

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Besotted: A Beau’s Bouquet is available through Blurb. Its companion couples diary, *Besotte