Reviewed by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher Matthew J. Trafford, Runs in the Blood (Arsenal Pulp, 2025), 184 pp., $21.95. An older brother goes viral after murdering a dog. A stepfather’s homophobia rubs off on his gay stepson. A butch lesbian feels out of place at the princess party she brought her...
Interview by Loch Baillie In this contributor spotlight, poetry editor Loch Baillie talks with Plenitude author Adam Arca about duality, mythology, and liberation movements, and how they converge with Adam’s poetry. Adam is a Filipino migrant rights organizer and writer living on unceded Musqueam...
There was a time when the world, as I came to understand it, held its breath. I took those years and bloomed into you. Like a pale rider, a searching cold reached through the city and drew away any powers of spinning old into new. Every flake of snow seemed to whisper You will never be still. I was...
The house had been yellow once. Óscar could see the places where the paint had peeled back entirely from the wooden siding, leaving splintered patches of grey in its wake. Its scabby state was of a piece with its other features: the missing shingles, the lawn blistered with weeds, the black door...
“Here are the ashes. / The days are beautiful.” —Ann Lauterbach All being said, the fathers of my wild hypothesis live near that dandelion clock fountain. All clean now: even the station beggars have PayID and the strip clubs close before the sushi train. On the second floor of an Art Deco...
Reviewed by Jeffrey Canton Lee Lai, Cannon (Drawn & Quarterly, 2025), 300 pp., $39.95. As a freelance reviewer and compulsive reader for nearly four decades, I can say honestly that Lee Lai’s Cannon is not only one of the best graphic novels I’ve read, but one of the best books, full stop. I’ve...
