The Difference Between Breathing and Swallowing is the debut poetry collection by Jocelyn M. Ulevicus, an intimate and lyrical exploration of womanhood, identity, memory, family, trauma, survival, desire, and transformation. Moving between Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Leith, Montreal, Brooklyn, and other landscapes, Ulevicus traces the ways place, memory, and the body become intertwined with the experience of becoming and knowing oneself.

The poems move between childhood and adulthood, intimacy and isolation, vulnerability and self-possession. They explore what is inherited from family, what is carried in the body, and what it means to break away from identities and expectations that no longer fit. Throughout the collection, the natural world becomes a language for transformation, with trees, flowers, water, animals, seasons, and the landscape repeatedly reflecting the speaker's inner life.

Raw, sensual, and deeply attentive to the physical world, The Difference Between Breathing and Swallowing is ultimately a book about survival and becoming: about finding beauty without denying pain, reclaiming the self, and learning how to remain fully alive. The collection has been praised for its "rawness and ache" and described as "a new anatomy for survival."

For readers of Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, Ocean Vuong, and Natalie Diaz, this collection invites us to consider what it means to remain open to wonder, connection, and transformation in an uncertain world.