Reviewed by Marie-Hélène Westgate Zahra Patterson, Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), 96 pp., $14. Not by accident, Zahra Patterson grants us entry into her long-form nonfiction essay, Chronology, through failure. The action of the book centers around Patterson’s inability to translate a...
Karine Hack Mashup of Ocean Vuong’s “homewrecker” & Michael Ondaatje’s “The Cinnamon Peeler” when we swam once, white dresses spilling from our feet / in water, late August our mothers / left with no trace your father’s tantrum turned, turning our hands dark red as if wounded: a wildfire we...
David Ly Too many men are too afraid to be tender, too raw. My love makes me fearless with fangs and a flickering tongue plucked from a king cobra. I match the wildness someone else wished into you until you were abandoned. Nothing between us is forbidden, too much, too scary. Your harpy talons...
Annick MacAskill The universe gets a little heavy-handed when you’re around—the Bow still green all these kilometers down river; two geese and their tuft of fledgling: proof that the universe was once the size of a gumball. Time is a rubber band, we joke. Nothing like looking over and seeing you...
Peter KS Yu The powdery veins of white pigment float within the deep gray field of our concrete bathroom floor, wisps of cloud in a dark sky. My husband Neil and I put so much intention into making that floor just right. We first conjured a shared vision—a floor with depth, transparency...
Reviewed by Lucas Crawford Emilia Nielsen, Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), 100 pp., $17.95. My skin tells non-linear tales: a series of abandoned forays into shrinkage and growth; into sun exposure and cooking burns (reader, do not cook fatty proteins sans shirt); into stretched pores and the...
