Moments To Hold Close

Description

From Molly Burford — Detroit writer whose work has appeared in Allure and Teen Vogue. "Moments to Hold Close" is her debut poetry collection and a viral TikTok and Instagram phenomenon, with individual poems reaching millions of views. This is not a book about grand gestures. It is a book about "I heard this song and thought of you." About the sides of legs accidentally touching in a backseat. About heart-to-hearts in dive bar bathrooms and crying alone in a car at a red light and the first hug and the kiss you know will be your last. "Moments to Hold Close" is Burford's love letter to the texture of ordinary life — the specific, sensory, almost unbearably recognizable details of what it feels like to be a human being paying attention. Written in her signature format of intimate, accumulating lists and prose poems, the book moves through the full range of experiences that make up a life: falling in love and watching it change, the strange permanence of small moments, the particular comfort of a platonic soulmate, the work of facing yourself, and the quiet grace of trying again after everything has fallen apart. What sets "Moments to Hold Close" apart from nearly every other poetry collection in this space is its tone — warm and philosophical but also, at moments, genuinely funny. Burford writes about big feelings with a lightness that never diminishes them, and about small moments with a weight that makes you realize how much they mattered. The result is a book that feels less like reading poetry and more like someone has articulated everything you have quietly felt but never found words for. Its viral piece "Signs You've Found Your Platonic Soulmate" became a social media moment unto itself — shared by readers who immediately recognized their own friendships in Burford's words. The rest of the book delivers the same shock of recognition, page after page. Readers describe it as the perfect coffee table book — short enough to open anywhere, specific enough to always land. Best read slowly, a few pages at a time, or in a single sitting on an afternoon when you want to feel everything. Perfect for readers who: - Are in their 20s or 30s and want a book that captures exactly what this season of life feels like - Love poetry and prose that is emotionally precise but never heavy-handed - Want something that celebrates the small moments — friendship, early love, ordinary afternoons — as much as the big ones - Follow Thought Catalog, BookTok, or literary Instagram and want the book everyone was sharing - Are looking for a beautiful, immediately giftable book for a best friend, a person they love, or themselves A Thought Catalog Books imprint. Comparable to the work of Bianca Sparacino and Charlotte Freeman, but with a warmer humor and a sharper eye for the comic specificity of being alive.