Jesse DeLong’s Poetic Chemical Reaction: A Review of The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook
by DEREK WITTEN Jesse DeLong, The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook (Baobab Press, 2021). Anyone who has vaguely intuited an unknown poetic language behind terms like electroweak, phosphorous, chlorofluorocarbons—or even behind the law of gravity– will find a skillful interpreter in Jesse DeLong. …
by Mathew Goldberg Saturday, we attended Safety Day at Davy Crockett High School where Levi got to sit in a fire engine, helicopter, and police car. In early October, summer assaulted Austin a second time, baking us inside the … Continued 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, … Continued 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, … Continued 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 … Continued 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 … ContinuedBad
Waterbaby: A Review
Skin 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