Twenty-fourth in the Mountain/West Poetry Series, edited by Stephanie G’Schwind, Kazim Ali, Dan Beachy-Quick, Camille T. Dungy & Donald Revell

Available for preorder now, publication date June 1, 2026

Exploring the tension between freedom and fidelity, Faithful Error meditates on life’s most sacred and often difficult loves—romantic, parental, familial, and spiritual—against a backdrop of environmental unease. These poems, rich in natural imagery, trace an emotional journey from intimate contemplation to transcendent questioning, grappling with the value of devotion in a world seemingly designed to extinguish hope. A palpable emotional intensity simmers beneath the restrained language, mirroring the manuscript’s central dynamic: a yearning to err, yet ultimately finding freedom in a return—however complicated—to faith.

“It is so good to be reminded of what only poetry can do by Sarah Louise Garrido’s Faithful Error. This book is full of life, of questions, of attention, of the marvelous errors that lead us again and again into, and out of, and back into belief. It is genuine in its questioning and its love of the world. It is funny and smart and kind and humble in all the right ways. I really loved reading this book and am grateful it is in the world.”
—Matthew Zapruder

“This is a book about becoming—in crisp language and sharp images that refresh us to the joys and pains of longing. Both patient and urgent, the speakers exist in worlds that function as backdrops to the drama both enacted and, at times, endured. Faithful Error demonstrates how one can be faithful to the outcomes of our errors while receiving a kind of trust back, or love. That gift is what makes these poems thrum in every line.”
—Chris Davidson

“Sarah Louise Garrido’s Faithful Error reckons with nature, both animal and human. Meticulous in their close looking, these poems capture shifting landscapes of mystery and feeling. Fog rises. A newborn cries. Rainwater slides down a sidewalk. The world distills itself under Garrido’s searching gaze, each line of each poem unfolding in a burst of insight and experience.”
—Bruce Snider

Sarah Louise Garrido is a poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Curator Magazine, Zocalo Public Square, Solum, and more. A finalist for the Yale Series of Younger Poets and winner of the Academy of American Poets College Prize (2009), she holds an MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California (2010)—where she had the great fortune of studying with writers such as Brenda Hillman, Matthew Zapruder, Graham Foust, Bruce Snider, and others. When not writing or working as a creative director, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two young children