'sweetened & steeped' submerges you in a dimension of childhood unique to southern Georgia, a place as warm and romantic as it is dangerous and unforgiving. Growing up in this isolated world gives life a degree of timelessness alongside impermanence, and these poems trace how zest evolves to recklessness and curiosity to hostility. Over the lifetime of a little girl, it sows intense place attachment alongside the need to escape. Through 'sweetened & steeped', the narrator struggles with the complicated notion of home and the forgiveness needed to return, a theme that exceeds this locale and speaks to readers from all backgrounds.*contains explicit language.