Portrait of a Woman (Bottlecap Press, 2025) is a dreamlike exploration of themes of femininity, nostalgia, and surrealism. Rae Flores uses a combination of poetry and paintings within her debut chapbook to both challenge and embrace hyperfemininity. While in some moments she depicts the modern world with rose-colored glasses, in others she contrasts taboo subject matter—such as women’s health, bodily autonomy, religious deconversion, and growing up—with the defining whimsical tone present in her work.

In Portrait of a Woman, Rae Flores connects with her audience through the allure of unconventional narratives. The poems and paintings in this book navigate the tension between childhood nostalgia and the complexities the emerging poet felt growing up as a queer woman, where the familiar becomes strange and the surreal feels all too real. At its core, Portrait of a Woman is an exploration of identity, where beauty, discomfort, and transformation coexist, and where readers are invited to deconstruct their insecurities and negotiate their own preconceived notions of domesticity and vulnerability.

publications

Collections

Portrait of a Woman, illustrated poetry chapbook, Bottlecap Press

Individual Publications

“Are You Sure” (p. 123) and “Iron and Lavender” (p. 124), North Texas Review

“Lullaby” and “When I Was Making up My Mind,” The 2River View

“Ode to Naiveté” (p. 16), North Texas Review