Waterbaby: A Review
by MINDY BUCHANAN-KING Nikki Wallschlaeger, Waterbaby (Copper Canyon Press, 2021). Reading Nikki Wallschlaeger’s third collection of writing is an immersive experience. The title, Waterbaby, elicits a sense of submersion, and the theme of water winds and slips between the …
by Sarah Walker It is the first time I have been home in seven years. I watch the windows, fixed on the blobs of light inside. I wait for the house to turn completely dark and when it does, … Read more by MATTHEW POTTS Devin Jacobsen, Breath Like the Wind at Dawn (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2020), pp. 208. Scary stories are probably about as ancient to human culture as campfires, but there’s a special sort of monster that lurks in the …
by JAMIE WATSON Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body (Two Dollar Radio, 2020), pp. 142. What does it mean to have a brief body, to wonder when one will truly feel here, now? How much history can …
by HANNAH ROBERTS Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021), pp. 80. “Regarding loss, I’m / afraid / to keep it in the story, / worried what I might bring back to life,” Akbar admits in “Soot,” the opening …
by Maggie Goss Ruth drove for hours to the mountains. Her headache, eight days old, moved behind her left eye. She was out of Advil and instead swallowed a tablet of veterinary Tramadol that her dog, recovered from a toothache, … Read more by Alex Wichert I sat in my three-star hotel room and wondered about the best way to kill someone. I hadn’t planned for this—the plot, in fact, was intended as comedy—but certain symptoms of doubt had crept in with … Read more by SARAH LOFSTROM Katharine Coldiron, Ceremonials (Kernpunkt Press, 2020), pp. 134. A novella inspired by the 2011 Florence + the Machine album of the same name, Ceremonials is an ethereal dreamscape of a text. It embodies sensuous transformation in its … Read more by ELLIE RAMBO Walter Serner, Last Loosening: a handbook for the con artist & those aspiring to become one (Twisted Spoon Press, 2020), pp. 189. The “Last Number” from Walter Serner’s Last Loosening, recently translated from German by Mark Kanak, … Read more by Joseph Rakowski Deer season was planned to open in a few weeks, and it was time Lorenzo took his eleven-year-old son to the store to get him his first long gun. He figured this would give him enough time … Read moreSkin Like You
Breath Like the Wind at Dawn: A Review
Seeking Utopia: Queer and First Nations Embodiment in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History of My Brief Body: A Review
“Ask me again / about my doubt”: A Review of Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell
What About It
He Handed Me a Picture
Ceremonials: A Review
Last Loosening: A Review
Gun Season