Jo Guzman

Jo Guzman

Poet

“I seek and desire”

— Sappho
Jo

About Jo

Jo Guzman is a poet and the author of the poetry collections Craving, 28, and Eros Despite. She began writing poetry in her fifties, exploring themes of nature, embodied empowerment, and love in its many forms.

Born in the Philippines and raised in the United States, Jo lives on the Oregon coast with her high school sweetheart and their four children. She’s a card-carrying selenophile with an unnatural love for nacho cheese. Words make her ridiculously happy.

Books

Eros Despite

Eros Despite

“I meant to write a book about Eros And I met me instead.”
– Jo

Eros Despite begins as a search for romantic love and becomes an intimate journey toward the self. Moving through desire, longing, heartbreak, beauty, and renewal, these poems reveal how the search for another can ultimately lead us home to our own heart.

Order on Amazon
Order on Poems & Power Publishing

Review:
“These poems will find you wherever you are: mid-grief, mid-joy, mid-becoming, in passionate, yearning, and/or complicated love, and say: ‘I see you’ and ‘me too.’ Jo writes what most of us have only dared to feel in the dark. This is not a book you read. But poetry that reads you, names you, and hands you back to yourself. ‘Once a dragon, always a dragon’, Jo reminds us that we always were one. This book is the friend who speaks the truth and loves fiercer for it. Within these pages live the ache of almost, holy and sacred desire, and the quiet uprising of a woman done apologizing for her wholeness, celebrating it instead. A reclamation of Self.”
— Erica P.

28

28

28 is a bold and intimate celebration of womanhood and rediscovery in midlife. Through 28 poems and accompanying creative prompts, Jo Guzman invites readers to explore their desires, awaken their creativity, and reclaim their own stories.
Order on Amazon

Review:
“Jo weaves a beautiful tapestry of reclaiming one’s fire, fire and authenticity and holds the lantern for women who are looking to do the same. This book is an absolute masterpiece and one that belongs on the shelf of every woman remembering who she is.”
— Peyton B.

Craving

Craving

Craving is a lyrical return to voice, body, and self in midlife. Rooted in nature and embodied empowerment, Jo Guzman’s debut collection traces the awakening of a woman stepping out of the shadows and into the freedom of her own expression.

Order on Amazon

Review:
“Each poem after poem continuously brings you peace comfort and vigour for the cravings of lust and life! You won’t pick up this beautiful creation of heART without putting it down feeling a newfound perspective on all that is and has and will be!”
— Shenise B.

Connect

Jo on Poems & Power Publishing

Jo on Amazon

28
28
Order on Amazon

28 is Jo Guzman’s alluring second collection of poetry, a bold and intimate celebration of womanhood and the art of rediscovery in mid-life. A Filipino-born, American-raised Gen X trailblazer, Jo began weaving her poetic magic in her 50s, crafting words that pulse with passion, reflection, and raw honesty. Her verses draw from a life lived in rich complexity—wife, mother, daughter, professional—and now, a woman unapologetically reclaiming her spotlight. 

Each of the 28 poems is followed by provocative prompts designed to spark your creativity—journal your secrets, sketch your desires, or pen your own poetic confessions. This collection isn’t just a book; it’s an invitation to dive into your depths and emerge inspired, empowered, and a little bit transformed.

Craving
Craving
Order on Amazon
Jo Guzman is a Gex X silver sister, who found her voice again, after decades of career and motherhood kept her living in the shadows. CRAVING is her debut collection of poems, which celebrates the re-discovery of self during mid-life. Her words explore her connection to nature, themese of embodied empowerment, and the celebration of self-expression.
Eros Despite
Eros Despite
Order on Amazon
Order on Poems & Power

“I meant to write a book about Eros 
And I met me instead.”
– Jo

Eros Despite is an evocative collection of poetry that begins with a search for romantic love and becomes something far more profound — a journey toward the self.

What began as an exploration of desire gradually unfolded into an unexpected pilgrimage inward.

As Jo Guzman followed the language of eros through love and longing, memory, heartbreak, beauty, and hope, she discovered that every search for another was, in some way, a search for herself.

Written with lyrical elegance and emotional honesty, these poems explore love in its many forms — passionate and tender, intoxicating and heartbreaking, sacred and ordinary. Along the way, eros reveals itself as more than romantic passion alone. It becomes the force that draws us toward beauty, truth, intimacy, creativity, and ultimately, the self.

Moving through themes of love, loss, sensuality, healing, and renewal, Eros Despite invites readers into the terrain where the heart follows desire wherever it leads. It gently asks what remains when longing strips away illusion, revealing that our search for another often becomes the path back to our own heart.

Both intimate and universal, Eros Despite is a collection for anyone who has loved deeply, lost courageously, questioned their own worth, or found themselves unexpectedly transformed by love. It is an invitation to linger in the beautiful contradictions of being human and to discover that perhaps the greatest love story is not the one we seek, but the one that leads us home to ourselves.