Take a Rib

In this timeline and collection, Diane Lilli returns to the poems of her youth, with transformative imagery that tracks her lifetime of writing poems, landing in 2025.

Beginning with her first poem written at eight-years of age, the author continues to share a real-time body of work from different moments of her life, as a fantastical, poetic memoir.

Every poem is organized in chronological order, and separated by distinct phases of her life.

Take a Rib is a wild ride through the stages of life as seen through the lines of a poet, from the freedom of surreal literary beginnings to the bittersweet world as it changes for everyone.

"Saying goodbye again," she writes, "I remind you, the most beautiful gardens grow inside fences."

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Diane Lilli wrote her first poem at eight years old, and saw her first poem published while attending Emerson College in 1975. Over the course of her lifetime, until now, she has had hundreds of poems published in numerous literary journals, university press, and anthologies.

Many of the poems included here were published pre-internet, though some still survive in print. Other titles by Diane Lilli, beyond her two decades of published articles in numerous media outlets, include the literary novel The Last Invention (published 2023) and the political science book How to Stop Project 2025 (published 2024).