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Jesse DeLong’s Poetic Chemical Reaction: A Review of The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook

January 5, 2022

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. …

Bad

January 1, 2022

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

Waterbaby: A Review

December 17, 2021

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 …

Skin Like You

December 1, 2021

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

Breath Like the Wind at Dawn: A Review

November 11, 2021

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 …

Seeking Utopia: Queer and First Nations Embodiment in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History of My Brief Body: A Review

October 12, 2021

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 …

“Ask me again / about my doubt”: A Review of Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell

September 20, 2021

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 …

What About It

September 15, 2021

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

He Handed Me a Picture

September 1, 2021

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

Ceremonials: A Review

August 31, 2021

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 … Continued