This Fragile Thing coming September 2026.
“Relentless in pursuit of a feminist form, This Fragile Thing is virtuosic in its blending of visual and textual poetics to ask: how can poetry hold the body in all its glory and all its trauma?”
CAITLIN MALING
WHEN KAREN LOWRY was 16, her grandfather was convicted of sexually abusing her. This poetry collection is a raw, unflinching testimony created from the wreckage. Darkly funny, vulnerable, and often confronting, Karen blends memoir, poetry and collage to give language back to the unspeakable. This Fragile Thing is Karen’s own act of witness: what breaks us leaves evidence.
“Lowry’s book is arresting, both visually and poetically. An exorcism, a bloodletting, and a testament to the hard-won courage it takes to speak up. Fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Tracey Emin will find a bracing new voice in This Fragile Thing.”
ELIOSE GRILLS
Poems from this collection have been published in Cordite, Australian Poetry Journal 14.2, Australian Poetry Digital 2025, Jacaranda Journal, Creatrix Poetry 73, Writer’s Victoria’s The Streets are Darker Without You Here, and Hunter Writer’s Centre Grieve volume 10.
Product will ship on September 1st 2026 or pickup your copy at the book launch by selecting this option during checkout.
The criminal honours himself with statues built in the open parklands of his mind.
I honour myself on paper,
it is a smaller recognition,
but it can be held more closely by others.
I read what I can, but I cannot borrow books from the library because my mother hasn’t paid the fines. If I had enough books I could build us a nicer house. I must read the right kind of books so I can build the right kind of house: Keats for slow-burn romance in the bedroom, gothic literature for the vaulted ceilings, pointed arches. I‘m a bricklayer using Dewey-Decimals.
This book is very critical of the political and social conventions that meant I was blamed for what happened to me, blamed for disclosing. I use my story to challenge the idea that my vulnerability in that moment was a personal failing, a failure on my part to make the right decisions, to keep myself safe. I know this now: I am not responsible for my trauma. .
This Fragile Thing (forthcoming 2026) is a vulnerable poetic memoir about how I have survived childhood trauma and sexual abuse. It exposes the lasting impacts of childhood sexual abuse, the institutions that failed me, and the family who chose him over me.
The book itself is fragmented, mixing court documents, confessional poetry, mixed media collage, and upside down pages to mirror how disorienting living through trauma actually is. There is no contents page, no page numbers, because, trauma cannot be easily navigated or understood.
For him, this shame is a transaction.
My no is a flood filling up the room, he reaches
down into the water. My no is all over the curtains.
My no is a rock sinking. The ripples on the surface
disappear. He says I should tell no one.
We are the only ones who know it’s there.
Self-publishing has always felt like the most authentic path forward . My agency was taken from me, but I can reclaim it now. I can take control of this story, of publishing and designing this book.
My parents fill the glass I’m holding. Their anger overflows, spreads like pink toxic algae in our salt-soaked home. I’m scared the water level will keep rising. This is how inland lakes are formed. Mum throws a plate; the shattered, sharp rocks reshape the current.
When I was eleven years old I learnt how much my grandfather liked to furnish other peoples homes.
When I was eleven years old I learnt how much my grandfather liked to furnish other peoples homes.
He used to lift my nightie up, adjusted the light switch on the walls.
He used to lift my nightie up, adjusted the light switch on the walls.
My sconces turned on with the lightest touch. For him, that was consent.
My sconces turned on with the lightest touch. For him, that was consent.
The design process has also been challenging as I’ve had to work within many of the systems my poetry actively resists. My process makes use of found images and, while this book often challenges authority, I do have the proper licensing agreements in place. Stock images, and images in the public domain, are an important part of my work as very few artefacts survived my childhood. I destroyed many of those that did after my diary was read in court. My use of collage fragments these materials because their story of what happened is broken, because it broke me.
The normal way of telling a story doesn't work for trauma. Much like these pages, trauma cannot be contained or understood.
Read the poems
‘Court Transcript’ in Cordite: Dialogue (May 2026).
‘House Full of Thunderstorms’ in Australian Poetry Journal 14.2 (2025).
‘My Home is not a House’ in Australian Poetry Digital 2025.
'My father died aged 67, 11th May 2021’ in The Streets Are Darker Without You Here by Writers Victoria (2025).
'Our First Christmas Without You' in Grieve 2022.