Sometimes Housework Tightens Me to the Material Reality of This World
somedays poets read about birds while I cut out a sewing pattern the fabric should be washed before it is cut poets say thank you thank you thank you…
They Told Me a Dragon was a Phoenix That Never Rose from Its Ashes
Standing on the platform in Albury, thinking about dead carnations and chipped porcelain, thinking about gelid lakes and the ten years between us, diametrical distance, my mother lamenting her…
Yucca Valley
Light dissolves on the outskirts of town where the trees are mostly their arms, devoid of reason in a strange dream. What hides in itself in the desert? I…
whose evacuation
the neighbors build on the brink of forest, in a few months, the house could be done or gone. watch from the field as they pour foundation concrete, then…
I was saying lily pads float without roots
after Eric Baus I was saying lily pads float without roots and my son notes I’m explaining things I don’t know he laughs and I sense ++++a…
Roar and Prayer: American Elegies: The World That the Shooter Left Us by Cyrus Cassells and Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking by C.T. Salazar
Two recent collections from queer poets of color put into stark relief the challenges and cruelties of contemporary America. Both collections are elegiac, though in formally different ways. Cyrus…
When the Museum Is a Mirror: Tenderness by Derrick Austin
Tenderness by Derrick Austin (BOA Editions, 2021). A funny thing about reviewing a book that’s been out for a while is whether and to what extent to consider…
The Natural Plot of Existence: The Red Zone: A Love Story by Chloe Caldwell
The Red Zone: A Love Story by Chloe Caldwell (Soft Skull Press, 2022). When Chloe Caldwell entered her thirties, she was already known for writing three books chronicling…
Telling the Right Story: Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity by Artress Bethany White
Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity by Artress Bethany White (New Rivers Press, 2022). Early in Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity, Artress Bethany…
The Other Osama
He was born with a silver knife in his mouth. And he was its first victim. —Osama Alomar Inside, the shop was limewashed and long enough to fit…