Category: Admin

Project Bookshelf: Shelby Hansen

A collection of books in multicolored. On the left is a stack of three with a brown teapot on top, and four are standing next to them on the right.

I can’t fit all the books in my personal collection in one photograph. Some of them are stacked in my television console while others are on my counter, and the majority are shoved onto two bookcases: a larger one downstairs, carefully organized into genre, and another in my bedroom that I’ve dubbed “The Romance Shelf” for all my favorite romance and Young Adult novels.

Even with all these books scattered around my apartment, I still have another full bookshelf in my childhood bedroom in Texas, filled to the brim with all the books I couldn’t afford to house here in Tennessee once I moved for college. And once a book becomes mine, it’s hard for me to let go. While most readers are incredibly careful with their books, trying their best to keep them pristine, I view the imperfections on my books as a badge of honor. Almost all of them have signs of love, even if they’ve barely been touched. To me, the wear and tear of a book can show you how much it means to its owner (as seen by the tear stains inside several of of my favorites).

Many people would hear that information and assume that I’m incredibly well-read. While that is correct in some aspects, there’s a lot more to the story. In truth, I love to collect books. There’s nothing quite like the rush of going into a bookstore, whether it be a Barnes and Noble or a well-used thrift books establishment, and finding a title that you want to dive into. The issue for me is that I can never say no. So, the book ends up coming home with me to collect dust on a shelf until I find the energy to pick it up.

As a mood reader, I find it very difficult to stick to a pre-planned “To Be Read.” To choose a book to read, I have to ponder on what I’m currently feeling, what I want to feel, and how much is going on in my life. However strange this may be, I have noticed that waiting to read a book you’ve been anticipating adds an incredible amount to the experience. In fact, most of my favorite novels are ones that I put off reading for months or years. So, this list of novels on my shelf falls in that category. Each of these are books that I had been wanting to read before I actually picked them up, whether by force through classwork or my own volition. Now, they sit on my shelf with pride, and I am all the better for the knowledge they’ve brought me.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A book with a photograph of Afghanistan in the background and gold trim around the border. The title, "The Kite Runner," is written across the top, and the author's name, Khaled Hosseini, is written at the bottom.

I anticipated this book for a year before I read it. The first time I had heard of it, I was a junior in high school, and I watched as the seniors filed into my AP Environmental Sciences class with tears on their faces. When I asked what was wrong, they just shook their heads. Later, I would learn that each of them had just finished reading The Kite Runner in Mrs. Bing’s AP Literature and Composition class, which I knew I would be taking next year. Fast forward a year later, and the book was already sitting on my shelf, begging to be cracked open. Throughout the course of reading this novel, I shed several tears and felt things I didn’t know books could make me feel. For the first time, I felt like the class discussions I was having with my peers meant something important, and I knew they all felt it as well. To me, this book is a beginning. It started my love of literary analysis and discussion, my craving for knowledge about worlds outside of my own, and made me wonder if I could ever be as good of a teacher as Mrs. Bing was one day (still to be seen!). Even more, it was a revelation that opened my eyes to the world around me and changed the way I viewed the world.

The Kite Runner perfectly blends themes of friendship, family, and political conflict, highlighting the effects of the Afghan conflict on Amir, our main character. More so, it tackles the ideas of forgiveness and atonement, painting a beautiful picture that allows readers to both understand and identify with Amir. Plus, the novel’s rich descriptions of Afghan culture, both in Afghanistan and as refugees in America, are absolutely amazing. I truly recommend this book to everyone, no matter who you are!

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A book with a blue border and a photograph of a burning castle. The title, "A Tale of Two Cities," is at the top while the author's name, Charles Dickens, is immediately underneath.

This one is a little more embarrassing. When I was in middle school, I was obsessed with Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices trilogy. In the trilogy, two of the main characters bond over their love of Dickens, particularly A Tale of Two Cities, and constantly make references while using themselves as metaphors for the characters in the novel. I begged my mom to take me to the mall, where I bought a Barnes and Noble Classics edition of the novel. But the moment I cracked it open, I couldn’t read it. For years, I tried to get past the first few pages, but I could never understand what exactly Dickens was trying to say. It felt too profound, so I gave up, resolving to read it eventually, whenever that may be. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I walked into Dr. Nancy Henry’s 19th Century British Literature course at the University of Tennessee and saw A Tale of Two Cities on the syllabus! Reading it as an adult and finally understanding those small references that I wanted to know so desperately as a child healed me, but it also opened my mind up to a world of new history and literature. Once again, I felt connection with my peers through class discussion, and I firmly believe those discussions and interactions are the reason it is cemented as my favorite classical novel. Well, other than the fact that I cry every time I read the last few paragraphs!

Before reading this book, I didn’t know much about the French Revolution. However, Dickens’ use of imagery and metaphor, especially in the scenes with Madame Defarge, are insightful into the conflict itself. Each character is so lovable in their own ways, even the “bad” ones! They make you root for them and sympathize with them, and by the end of the novel, I was fully invested into each and every one of them. I never wanted it to end!

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

A gray book with an old, antique-style style pattern on the bottom left. The title, "The Fifth Season," is at the top. Underneath it is the words "Every age must come to an end," and the author's name, N.K. Jemisin, is below them. A yellow circle with the words "Winner of the Hugo Award" is at the bottom right.

I felt the opposite of anticipation before reading this book. I had only ever heard of it in spaces that praised incredibly complex fantasy, and quite frankly, I never thought I would get into it. Knowing that a third of the book is in second person point-of-view intrigued me, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt too intimidated to actually purchase it. Imagine my surprise when I saw the syllabus for my Science Fiction and Fantasy class in college, and The Fifth Season was the second to last book on the list! I was told by my professor, Dr. Amy Elias, that it was one of the best books she had ever read, but I couldn’t get rid of the dread lingering in my stomach leading up to the moment I cracked open the novel. But from the moment I read the first page, I was hooked. Each line brought more questions that I needed answered, and the only way to get them was to continue reading. By the end of the novel, I was left with even more, yet I was still completely satisfied with everything I’d read.

It’s difficult for me to talk about how much I love this book without spoiling it, so I’ll be brief. Jemisin does something so beautiful with her writing, and each point of view is so rich and vibrant. The way she tackles oppression and family throughout the entire series is masterfully done, and although it is confusing at times, I have never felt more satisfied by learning the answers I’d been longing to know by the end. Even better is the worldbuilding and intricate magic system, using the earth and magic in a way I’ve never read before. For those who love fantasy and are looking for something new, this is my number one recommendation!

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

A book with an orange spiral down the front. Overtop of it is the title, "Turtles All The Way Down," and the author, John Green.

When I was younger, I was an avid fan of John Green. Like most people my age, The Fault In Our Stars was one of my first heartbreaks caused by a book, and I read the rest of his repertoire rather quickly. When Turtles All The Way Down was finally published, though, I had moved on to other things. I had always wanted to read it, but I never had the chance. In fact, I was told not to read it. Because I am someone who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) like the novel’s main character, several people told me that reading it would do nothing but trigger a mental spiral. However, that made me want to read it more to see if its depiction of OCD was realistic.

This book did trigger a mental spiral for me, but I think that shows how good of job Green did with his depiction of OCD. I found myself relating to every sentence and every thought. Although it is easier for me to control my obsessive-compulsive thoughts than Aza, I could complete understand the way her mind works, as it is the same as mine. It almost scared me to see my own thought processes reflected in a novel not written by me. I truly would recommend this book to anyone who knows someone with OCD or obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It will make you understand them and their brain a lot more!

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

A book with a photo of a Malcolm X, a young Black man with classes and closely cut hair leaning against one hand and smiling. Underneath the photo is the title, "The Autobiography of Malcom X: As Told To Alex Haley."

I first learned about Malcolm X in high school, but he was characterized as “the opposite of Martin Luther King Jr.” My peers and I were told that he had more “radical” ideas and that he supported the use of violence during the Civil Rights Movement. Immediately, I was intrigued to learn more about him, but I was never a big fan of autobiographies. Once again, I was gifted the pleasure of reading this novel through a class syllabus, for Dr. Urmila Seshagiri’s memoir course. Opening those pages and reading their contents was one of the hardest things I’ve done. I had to come to terms with a lot of information that made me feel sad, uncomfortable, and downright angry, but it helped me gain a new perspective into this integral part of American history. I am so grateful for the chance to glimpse into Malcolm X’s mind, and I feel that it helped me understand so much more about the Black experience in America, both in the past and today.

The thing that shocked me the most about this novel is how much of Malcolm X has been erased or dimmed in current American history classes. It spans all the way up to X’s assassination, and Alex Haley chronicles some of the time afterwards. Through the entire memoir, one thing is obvious: Malcolm X wasn’t a man that craved violence, he was a man that craved change and autonomy. Because of the gross mischaracterization that mainstream society places on X, I believe every American should read this memoir.

The Poppy War by RF Kuang

An orange book with a drawing of a young Asian woman holding a bow and arrow on the bottom left corner. The title, "The Poppy War," sprawls across the top, and shadows are drawn across the letters. The author's name, R.F. Kuang, is to the right of the drawing of the woman.

I had this book endlessly recommended to me before I read it. Everyone told me it was one of the best fantasy books ever written while also warning me about its dark nature. “This isn’t what you normally think when you think of fantasy,” they said. “It’s hard to read at times, but it’s worth it.” Eventually, I bought it, and like several other books, it sat on my shelf collecting dust for a few years. It wasn’t until a very close friend of mine sat on my couch and finished the third book in the trilogy with tears streaming down her face that I knew I needed to pick it up immediately. Turns out, everyone was right. Immediately upon finishing it, after I had already cried three times, I knew that this book had dethroned another and taken the spot of my Favorite Book.

Much of this novel is heavily inspired by Chinese history, the Sino-Japanese War, and acts of genocide. As the main character, Rin, learns more about the world around her, she becomes entangled with the empire’s gods, realizing that the line between the spiritual and physical world is thinner than she previously believed. When war comes to Nikan, she is forced to throw herself into battle at the cost of her own mind and sanity. I feel like Kuang perfectly uses history and mythology together to create a story centered around incredibly complex characters. Truly, her writing perfectly blends plot with character in a way that I’ve never seen before. I felt like reading it helped me understand what I want to accomplish in my own fantasy novel, and I believe it made me a better writer. I want everyone under the sun to read this book!

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

A blue book with two people, a brown-haired person wearing a red shirt and a ginger-haired person wearing an orange shirt, kissing in the middle. Both of their shirts have drawings of popular tourist attractions in Europe on them. At the top is the author's name, Casey McQuiston, and underneath the people is the title, "The Pairing."

Casey McQuiston is an author I’ve loved for a long time. Red, White, & Royal Blue and One Last Stop were both five star reads for me, and I consistently reread them when I want to feel something again. Their novels center around some of the most beautiful and difficult parts of queerness, and I’ve always appreciated their ability to make me laugh and cry two pages apart. The Pairing was a novel I had been looking to read since its publication, but I wasn’t able to get to it until a month ago. However, I was shocked (in a good way) by how different this novel was compared to McQuiston’s others.

I enjoyed every part of this book. The writing made me feel like I was truly traveling across Europe with Kit and Theo, and the different foods and wines they tried made me desperate to take my own trip across the sea. Queer culture is littered throughout its pages, and Theo’s gender identity struggles in learning they are nonbinary were included in such a natural, raw, and beautiful way. However, the main reason I am including this book is because it changed and reframed my perception of love. Kit and Theo are exactly what I believe love should be— they see every single part of each other, including their flaws, and love each other because of them rather than in spite of them. The way that Theo and Kit talk about each other in this book is magical, poetic, and realistic all at once, and I feel that everyone should aspire to find this kind of love. If you want to read the happiest ending, pick this one up immediately!

Shelby Hansen (she/her) is a creative writer and self-proclaimed fantasy maestro hailing from the northern plains of Texas. She recently graduated from the University of Tennessee’s English program with a focus in Literature and Creative Writing, where she won several awards for her fiction. Her writing often focuses on womanhood, identity, and the reclamation of the self. This is reflected in her debut novel, which she hopes to publish soon. When she is not writing or teaching today’s youth, she enjoys reading, crocheting, swimming, and spending time with her two cats, Stella and Gemma.

Shelby Hansen

Project Bookshelf: Catie Macauley

I exhale the moment I cross the threshold. I’ve just returned from a semester abroad in Peru, and am filled with a quiet, resounding sense of homecoming as I step into the dust particles and ghosts of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop. I study the new titles on the “Queer Poetry” shelf with a sense of reverence and curiosity, discovering the books that fill the spaces of those sold while I was away.

My friends, browsing the shelves of the Grolier, Summer 2024.

I’ve worked at the Grolier since 2023, and its impact on my life cannot be overstated. Some of my best friends were made as I heard the tinkle of the bell over the 100-year-old door. Some of my favorite poems were found during slow afternoons spent lounging in the spotted armchair behind the register. It feels like my home, though, because our impact on each other is reciprocal; whenever I visit the shop, as a bookseller or buyer, I swap out a book on the central “Recommended” table for a book I’m currently reading and loving. Nothing brings me more of a thrill than seeing someone pick up a new love of mine from the slanted wood, bringing Raisa Tolchinsky’s Glass Jaw, Cam Awkward-Rich’s Dispatch, or my all-time favorite Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems to the ancient cash register.

I feel like these shelves are mine, just as I am theirs. I am beholden to their words, to the pull of the poems they cradle and hold. They introduced me to my love of Spanish with bilingual collections like Agustin Fernandez Mallo’s Pixel Flesh. They influenced my tattoos and marked my body forever with Limón’s proclamation that, “I swear, I will play on this blessed earth until I die.” These bookshelves hold memories and dreams, tears and hopes, and I feel the blessed weight of it all whenever I enter the shop.

My physical, personal bookshelf also transforms because of the Grolier. It expands in new ways after every reading: Edgar Kunz’s Fixer became a staple on my nightstand after witnessing the marvel that was his poem “Piano” in a cramped corner of the shop. Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s triumphant “Hammond B3 Organ Cistern”, similarly, earned their collection Rocket Fantastic a central place on my shelf. Above my shelf hang bookmarks from all the incredible small presses and imprints that sell their wares at our shop: Analog Sea, Zephyr, and Lily Poetry Review, to name just a few. I am a better writer, reader, and person for the ways that my bookshelf mirrors the change that a poetic haven like the Grolier has sparked in me. 

Catie Macauley (they/he/she) is a transmasculine aspiring poet living and working in Boston. They study Sociology, Environmental Studies, and English at Wellesley College, where they also compete on the Wellesley Whiptails frisbee team and perform with the Wellesley Shakespeare Society. A Best of the Net 2024 Nominee, his writing has appeared in brawl lit, The Wellesley News, and the Young Writer’s Project, among other publications. In their free time, Catie enjoys boxing, re-reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream , and buying far too many books at independent bookstores – primarily the Grolier Poetry Bookshop, where they are somehow lucky enough to work.

Sundress Reads: Review of While Visiting Babette

Header reading "Sundress Reads" in black with the Sundress logo. There's an illustration on the left of a sheep, wearing glasses and holding a book in the hand on the right and a teacup in the left. The sheep is sitting on a stool.
Book Cover of While Visiting Babette. There's an illustration of a barred window over a light beige background. The title "While Visiting Babette" is in forest green block letters over the window. Below the window is another black rectangle with the author's name "Kat Meads" written inside in white block letters.

Kat Meads’s While Visiting Babette (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2025) is a surreal magnifying glass, trained on institutionalized cousins Ina and Babette. With a talent for lyrical prose and an intriguing premise, Meads hooks readers with the promise of boundless potential from the very first paragraph and very aptly delivers. Imbued with a dreamlike quality, exacerbated by the element of institutionalization, While Visiting Babette evokes the mood of a fairytale gone wrong—a single, unassuming mistake starting a catastrophic domino effect.

Visiting Babette in whichever institution she resides in is routine to Ina, a regular activity despite the changing locations. On her latest visit, however, an oversight leads to irreversible consequences. Finding no one at the registration desk to confirm her relation to Babette, Ina foregoes waiting for a visitor’s pass and heads straight to Babette’s room.

A brief lockdown ensues, trapping Ina momentarily with Babette, but it is her “rookie mistake” (Meads 8) of running as soon staff unlock the doors again which seals her fate. Mistaken for a patient attempting an escape, she is locked in a room of her own. From thereon, the novella follows Ina and Babette, from Ina’s perspective, as the two cousins interact with other women, live at the institution, and weather controlled chaos.

Meads’s storytelling is enchanting due to its brilliant technique of feeding the reader just enough input to be tantalizing, a delicate balance in the space between repetitive and perplexing. We do not know why any of the characters are institutionalized, least of all Babette or Ina. It is up to the reader to question why Ina would’ve been kept at the facility at all past the initial misunderstanding; but because we do not see the process in between her attempt to run for it and her stay in a room of her own the next day, we are left to question whether the staff had evaluated her or simply decided she would stay on the grounds of their presumption. Meads writes:

“For instance, since arriving and being unable to leave, Ina had been led to believe that her tendency to dart and dash as well as her fear of windows could be overcome. […] The dart and dash stuff she rather enjoyed, though. The dart and dash reflex she would rather retain.” (71)

This is only one of the details Meads leaves up to the readers, merely giving us hints later that Ina may indeed be in the facility for a reason.

As the story unfolds, so do the layers of Ina and Babette’s backstory—we learn they’re orphans, that they stayed with an “Aunt Careen,” but beyond that, very little is clearly stated, creating a fitting unmoored effect for the reader, which marries nicely with what Ina must feel as a new resident at the facility. Adding to the isolated, dissociated mood of the story is Meads’s choice of showing us only a few of the women in the facility from a removed and limited perspective.

Interactions with characters like Clara, one of the residents and a writer of stories she likes to read to the others, reveal more information about the cousins: “They had no mothers, only aunts. As such they were perhaps not the best audience for mother mocking stories” (Meads 19). The small cast of characters we get to witness, due to our witnessing of them through Ina’s perspective and our limited understanding of them, serve Ina’s, and by extension, Babette’s characterization more than their own.

Ina and Babette’s “mind reading” is also a strong nuance, emphasizing the cousins’ connection in a tonally cohesive technique, but more importantly, highlighting their differences. Babette comes across as more assured, more mature while Ina seems to retain a more childlike quality.

“Babette had seen in-house plays performed previously but this was Ina’s first in-house theatre experience. She was not optimistic. …

“Yes, we have to stay,” Babette whispered.

“I know that!” Ina hissed.

When Babette read her thoughts, she should read all of them.” (Meads 53-54)

What makes Ina’s and Babette’s characterization particularly intriguing is the way Meads intertwines plot and character into a seamless tapestry. The nature of who they are steers the plot more than any external force. Meads’s handling of time is equally masterful, guiding readers forward despite the floating quality of the character-centric plot. One such example is immersing the reader in Ina’s perception of the passage of time as she takes a test at the facility:

“The proctor’s face offered no clues either way but her index finger twice tapped her wristwatch. Reminding Ina that she was on the clock did nothing to hasten her responses, but the warning did send her into a memory warp that wasted several additional answering minutes.” (Meads 74)

Meads proceeds to take us along said memory, allowing us to settle into Ina’s experience.

It is then entirely unsurprising that While Visiting Babette’s pace is exemplary for its particular plot. Short, punchy chapters make for perfect readability. Coupled with Meads’s talent for prose, with phrases like, “Although she was shrinking and Babette expanding” (Meads 45), this is a book you can easily read in a day (or one sitting if you have time)!

While Visiting Babette is a book readers will think about days after they’ve finished reading it, reflecting on its nuances and happily accepting Kat Meads’s invitation to wonder about her characters, their mystical world, and the untethered facility tinged with darkness.

While Visiting Babette is available through Sagging Meniscus Press

Headshot of brown woman of Middle Eastern/North African descent against a bluish-lavender background. She wears a greyish navy hijab (headscarf), silver earrings, and a white jacket with silver buttons.

Tassneem Abdulwahab (she/her) is an aspiring writer and editor with a BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing from UWE Bristol. With a strong interest in culture, history, and psychology and a love for fiction, her writing often draws on one or more of these threads to tell character-centric stories. Trained in oil painting, she recently exhibited and sold two portrait paintings in February 2025. In her free time, you can find her buying more books (no, seriously—she owns three editions of Little Women), snapping pictures of the little details, or sitting at her easel.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents November Poetry Xfit

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Brynn Martin. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, November 30th, from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.

Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!

A white woman with blonde curly hair stands in front of a gray wall. She wears a light blue t-shirt and a gold pendant necklace while staring into the camera.

Brynn Martin (she/her) is a Midwesterner at heart, but she has spent the last decade living in Knoxville, where she received her MFA in poetry from the University of Tennessee. She is an Associate Editor for Sundress Publications and the event manager for an indie bookstore. Her poetry has appeared in Contrary Magazine, Rogue Agent, FIVE:2:ONE, and Crab Orchard Review, among others.

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

While this is a free event, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents “The Intersection of Religion and Mental Health in Poetry: A Generative Workshop”

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “The Intersection of
Religion and Mental Health in Poetry,” a workshop led by Maya Williams on Wednesday,
November 12th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can
access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).


Regardless of the religious, nonreligious, irreligious, or spiritual worldview we identify with, the culture of religion continues to be an influence on people’s mental health. We
will look at poetry by Adrienne Novy, Eugenia Leigh, and Maya Williams to learn how
suicidality, spiritual bypassing, and religious related trauma in poetics can impact us. We will
also make time to write in response to prompts inspired by the poems.

While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may
make donations directly to Maya Williams via Venmo: @MayaWilliams16.

Maya Williams

Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who was selected as Portland, ME’s seventh poet laureate for a July 2021 to July 2024 term. Eir debut poetry collection, Judas & Suicide (Game Over Books, 2023), was selected as a finalist for a New England Book Award. Their second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date (Harbor Editions, 2023), was selected as a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. Their third poetry collection, What’s So Wrong with a Pity Party Anyway?, was selected as one of four winners of Garden Party Collective’s chapbook prize in 2024.

This event is brought to you by a grant provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Sundress Reads: Review of Becoming Sam

Sundress Reads logo: a bespectacled sheep sits on a stool and reads a book while drinking a cup of tea.
Book cover depicting two mangos on a beige background.

The Sri Lankan Civil War, beginning in 1983 and ending in 2009, was fought between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), a Tamil group that rose up in an attempt to establish their own independent state experiencing discrimination and frequent violent persecution. Ultimately, the LTTE were unsuccessful, and the Sri Lankan government has since faced numerous accusations of genocide, war crimes, and other atrocities. Against mounting evidence, the Sri Lankan government maintains they did nothing wrong.

This is the backdrop of Samodh Porawagamage’s Becoming Sam (Burnside Review, 2024) which is sweet, devastating, and always insightful. This poetry collection is split into three parts: “Malli Playing by a Mossy Stone” recounts scenes from Porawagamage’s childhood in Sri Lanka; “Peeling the Mango” grapples with his life as an immigrant in the United States; “The Monsoons” contains reflections on post-colonialism.

Porawagamage remarkably embodies the situation that inspired his book. Take, for example, the short, searing poem, “A Killing.” Porawagamage writes recalling the immediate aftermath of a theft:

“…When the police

brought Lizzy to sniff him down,

I patted her in secret.

Then we all ran after her

crossing the road to a large

garbage bin. She sent it

flying, snatched in her mouth

a stray cat by the neck, shook

it once. Twice. The nine lives

convulsed like the night sky

shot by thunderbolts.” (26)

 On the surface, the poem recounts what would be, to a child’s mind, a thrilling, almost adventurous memory. But taken in the political context of Porawagamage’s childhood, it is darkly suggestive, and an excellent exercise in metaphor. The police dog, rather than capturing the one responsible, kills a being that had nothing to do with the real crime. It perfectly symbolizes how government authorities we are taught to trust from a young age eventually reveal themselves as needlessly—one could even say extrajudicially—violent.

Elsewhere in the first part of the book, poems like “The Afterlife of Cut Hair” play into the casual absurdism of a child’s mind. “On the last day of middle school,” a presumably young Porawagamage watches a barber’s “delicate hands cut a girl’s hair like he is / preparing salad for dinner” (23). Porawagamage confesses, “Once I thought / the barbers sold cut hair to make / Bombay Muttai,” a Sri Lankan type of cotton candy (23). In the last lines of the poem, when his family flies to the Indian city of Chennai—the largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is a massive cultural center for Tamils—he receives “a special / kids’ meal for free. It tasted like uprooted hair / poorly fried in a barber’s soothing gel” (23). The image of hair being turned into a dessert, and then finally eaten, reminds me of the way little kids fixate on seemingly ridiculous, almost psychedelic, ideas. But, as with “A Killing,” there are subtleties here that give the poem a profound emotional resonance. Porawagamage’s choice of the word “uprooted” suggests that maybe his family was fleeing increasing violence in Sri Lanka. The juxtaposition between the hair being “poorly fried” in “soothing gel” turns a whimsical description of mediocre tasting food into a solemn moment when a sweet treat isn’t enough to distract a child from the troubling reality they are stuck in.

My favorite poem in the collection, “Everywhere Love Songs,” comes in the “Peeling the Mango” section and is split into two parts. The first, “The Kid and the Beetle,” features a grown Porawagamage on his “way to teach love poetry” (48). Ahead of him, a little boy walks holding his mother’s hand, but then stops and points at the ground between him and Porawagamage. There’s a black beetle on the ground. Porawagamge writes:

“He gives me a half-toothless smile and burst of vigorous nods and

then demonstrates how to jump over it.

I give him two thumbs-up and take a longer path to class.” (48)

Honestly, I just found the presence of this scene, so simple, so sweet, in a book that deals with prejudice and violence to be nothing less than life-affirming. The real coup de grâce, though, comes in the second part, “Later That Night at the Bar.” “A middle-aged ‘Jim’” pours his heart out to Porawagamage about how the woman he loves is married to another man and has given birth to his children (49). He asks, guilt ridden, if Porawagamage things “he’s an obsessed voyeur” (49). After buying him some chips, Porawagamage tells him:

“Appreciating a

flower without plucking it takes a special kind of courage. I also tell him

about the kid and struggle to construct his as an act of love.

He laughs and tells me that I don’t sound or act like an Indian….Later, the barmaid tells me Jim had

already paid for everything I bought that night.” (49)

We have these two men sharing a beautiful scene, only to have one of them act in a racist, ignorant way towards Porawagamage. Rather than explicating on it, Porawagamage wisely just leaves the dilemma in the air: Jim was obviously kind, at least in some capacity, and even acted generously towards Porawagamage. How does that square with his other behavior? How is Porawagamage supposed to feel? How is the reader supposed to feel? It’s the type of emotional ambiguity that gets under your skin and stays there.

The third and final section of the book sees Porawagamage excavate aspects of Sri Lanka that have stayed under his skin, to glorious results. The poem “In a Democratic Socialist Republic” is, frankly, the best piece of recent protest art I’ve encountered in quite a long time. While “the Police…ever so kind, / massage our rebellious heads / with cushioned batons” the speaker sees “in a ditch  / the goddess of law— / that good-for-nothing whore / pleading for her life” (80). The poem ends as the speaker climbs “a rusty ladder / one rung at a time / to another Democratic / Socialist planet / only visible / in the dark / at night” (81). It’s the kind of poem that contains all the living energy of an ongoing struggle, and though it may have been written with Sri Lanka specifically in mind, anyone angry at their government is sure to find it invigorating.

These are just some of the many jewels to be found in this relentlessly vivid and incisive collection of poetry. Throughout, there are intense, personal poems about survivor’s guilt, longing, and love. And in the end, it is author’s honest reflections on his own encounters with violence and colonialism that should make Becoming Sam a cherished classic. It displays the talents and fragments of the life a poet who is a master of his art without ever coming across as artificial. Poems like that are, at least for me, why I read poetry in the first place.

Becoming Sam is available from Burnside Review

Joseph Norris has brown hair and stands in front of book shelves.

Joseph Norris graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in May of 2025. He has had short stories and poems published in Gauge Magazine, Emerson Green Mag, and won the Humans of the World Summer Poetry Prize. He lives in Berkeley, California with his girlfriend, Macie, and their cat, Dory, and is learning how to play the guitar and the banjolin.

Project Bookshelf: Emma Goss

If I had to define the genre that enthralls me the most when it comes to my own reading habits, I would probably go with Female Rage Novels. I’m deeply moved by authors who explore a complex woman, whether it be by indulging in qualms about her embodiment, explorations with her body and agency, or with the power structures around her. I find novels that entertain this kind of tender, flawed, fierce female character to be significant.

My favorite book of all time is The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I find her exploration of embodiment and agency to be profound and deeply saddening at the same time. Told via triptych, Kang pushes the boundaries of fiction by engaging with elements that verge on the fantastical. This book is nothing short of brilliant and remains my favorite Kang book. Some other novels I’d personally assume under the moniker of Female Rage are Animal by Lisa Taddeo, I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, and Big Swiss by Jean Bagin.

I would, however, hate to not mention the grip that literary fiction as a whole has on me. Kazuo Ishiguro, Ocean Vuong, Sally Rooney (duh), Ann Napolitano and R.F. Kuang are among by favorites as well. I like to organize my bookshelf by genre rather than author and have the aforementioned writers bunched together as if at dinner with one another. I’m also absolutely obsessed with Irish writers. I studied abroad at Trinity College in Dublin, and while living there I was introduced to many Irish writers such as Ian McEwan, Colm Toibin, Sean Hewitt (who taught my poetry seminar!), and Chloe Michelle Howarth. Brooklyn and On Chesil Beach explore the impact setting can have on a novel like no other novels I’ve ever read. I also want to highlight Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth, my favorite queer narrative in a fiction novel. This takes me to another genre of literature I enjoy: Queer/Gender-bending novels. I’d include Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea and Fun Home by Allison Bechdel in this beloved category.

And while we are on Julia Armfield, I have to mention short story collections, AKA the most underrated rated genre of literature (second to poetry). Salt Slow by Julia Armfield and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma are original, speculative, and depict courageous instances of nuance. If nothing else has sounded appealing from my bookshelf, take these two as a guaranteed 5 Stars of Goodreads pick. There is something for everyone in these collections.

Summer books! With college courses eroding some of my pleasure reading time—and replacing it was the finicky syllabi and reading, ranging from incredibly engaging to the lack thereof—I relish summer and the time to read (and listen) to books (I’m obsessed with audiobooks, have I mentioned that?). My summer faves are all over the place, which accurately reflects my overall reading taste. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, and Educated by Tara Westover are summer reads that have inspired me to write, reflect, journal.

And yes, many of my books are stacked virtually as my bookshelf is criminally small… Anyway! I couldn’t end this post without mentioning poetry. Poetry is perhaps the only reason that reading is a part of my life now. I was introduced to reading poetry by my elementary teacher Holly, the first activity I really connected with. The first type of literature that moved me deeply. While Ada Limon was my starting point, and remains my home base, I’ve enjoyed Richard Siken, Charles Simic, Maggie Nelson, Marie Howe, Chen Chen, Mary Ruefle, Solmaz Sharif, Brenda Shaughnessy and Ocean Vuong. These are the books that I will take with me everywhere.

And to finish this post off, I’d have to mention Audible, my sacred multi-tasking activity. Walking to a coffee shop? Audible. Waiting for your laundry? Audible. Doing a puzzle? Audible. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro are some of my favorite listens from the past couple of weeks.

I enjoy reading in all its forms and genres, and am so grateful to have access to such a comprehensive selection of stories to read and learn from. I’ve just learned that the minimum number of books to count as a personal library, officially, is 1000 books—so, rightly, that is my next goal (I have a very long way to go).

Emma Goss

Emma Goss (she/her/hers) is a senior English major with minors in Film and Linguistic Anthropology. A passionate reader, she prefers to always be juggling a poetry collection, a literary fiction novel, and an audiobook. Emma is especially drawn to poetry rooted in nature symbolism and metaphor. Some of her favorite collections include The Tradition by Jericho Brown, War of the Foxes by Richard Siken, What the Living Do by Marie Howe, and Jane: A Murder by Maggie Nelson. Her poetry has been published in Pangyrus Magazine and by the Princeton Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Poetry Contest. Originally from Los Angeles, she spends her time hiking local trails or browsing the poetry shelves at Barnes & Noble Studio City when not at Vassar.

Meet Our New Intern: Marian Kohng

Every day after school, my parents would take me and my sister to the library. We would spend hours debating which books to borrow and then end up checking out as many as we could. I still remember the immense joy I felt of making my own library card (Arthur said it best: “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card”). One of the very first books that sparked my love for reading was the Rainbow Magic series. I absolutely adored the premise of two best friends helping beautiful fairies save their world. My love for stories grew and I fell in love with the world of words (and I started hinting for books for my birthday).

My favorite class throughout middle and high school was Literature, which was very on-brand for me. I loved how we got to read so many stories, and it felt like an hour-long class of just rambling about them with my classmates. And I can ramble for hours about books.

As I started to think about what I wanted to do in my life, I knew that I desired to be a part of something I am passionate about and make a difference in the world. I realized I really wanted to work in publishing after getting my Master’s in Marketing. I was reading more and more books during this time, and I started wondering about the process of how books are brought into the hands of readers—how amazing it would be to work with books and help share authors’ voices around the world. It felt very natural discovering this dream. My family and friends were like, “Wow, that is perfect for you,” which felt like an accomplishment in and of itself, since I never really knew what I wanted to do. And now I did. I want to be a part of helping stories come alive and make an impact on others. The thought of working in publishing ignites a spark of passion I didn’t know I had. And I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

Books are powerful. They change us in ways we may not even notice. They teach us empathy, help us experience different worlds, and simply make us happy when we curl up with a good book after a long day. I’m currently a Traffic Copy Editor at a local news station in Tucson, AZ, and I’m so excited to work at Sundress Publications as an Editorial Intern. I’m grateful for this opportunity to learn closely about the publishing world. Here’s to helping more voices and books come to life!

Marian Kohng (she/her/hers) is a proud Korean American and an Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications and a Traffic Copy Editor at a local news station in Tucson, AZ. She also has a Bachelor’s in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science and a Master’s in Marketing. She loves to get lost in a good book and will read just about anything, including the back of the shampoo bottle.

Meet Our New Intern: Savannah Roach

Growing up, I watched my mom read constantly. Her shelves overflowed with well-worn paperbacks and hardcovers, the corners bent from love and re-reading. As a kid, I didn’t get it. I’d ask, “Why read the same story twice?” or tease her when she cried over fictional characters. But now, I understand. Books were her escape. Her outlet. Her way of processing a world that didn’t always feel gentle. And somewhere along the way, I inherited that same instinct.

For me, it’s romance novels and period dramas that feel like home. There’s something about getting swept away into a slow-burn love story set in a candlelit ballroom or sun-drenched countryside that makes the noise of everyday life a little quieter. Whether it’s Pride and Prejudice, Outlander, or a swoony new romance from BookTok, I find pieces of myself in each plot and prose.

Books have become more than just a hobby; they’re how I recharge, how I reflect, and sometimes, how I remember who I am. They’ve helped me put words to emotions I didn’t even know how to name. They’ve taught me that sometimes the smallest things, a glance, a letter, the way someone says your name, can carry entire universes of meaning. Reading helped me fall in love with quiet moments: the morning light hitting a coffee cup just right, the way the wind moves through the trees, the pause between words in a really good conversation.

More than that, stories gave me courage. Courage to dream bigger. To travel. To believe the world is full of people worth knowing and places worth exploring. I’ve booked flights and wandered cities alone because a character once did the same. I’ve trusted my gut more boldly because books taught me that adventure often begins with a single step outside your comfort zone.

And yes, books made me believe in love. In happily ever afters. Not in a perfect, fairy tale kind of way, but in a hopeful, deeply human one. The kind of love that’s imperfect and earned and worth waiting for. The kind my mom used to read about late into the night when she thought no one was watching.

Now, as a 20-year-old senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville—majoring in English and minoring in Advertising and PR—I look back and see how those pages shaped me. I don’t just want to read stories anymore. I want to write them, share them, and help others feel seen by them, the way I’ve always felt when I turned the final page of a book that mattered.

My mom gave me that without even trying, and I like to think she’s excited that I finally understand what she was chasing in those quiet hours with a book in hand.

Savannah Roach (she/her) is a senior at the University of Tennessee, where she majors in English with a concentration in technical communication and minors in advertising and public relations. She is a travel enthusiast, bookworm, amateur baker, and nature lover. While she enjoys books of all kinds, she’s especially drawn to the haunting beauty and rich atmosphere of Southern Gothic literature. With a great love for Knoxville, she looks forward to serving the writing community in this position. 

Meet Our New Intern: Penny Wei

My name is Penny Wei and I am from Shanghai, China, currently living in Massachusetts. I am a Virgo, slow-walker, and an admirer of lakes, botanical gardens, and cherries.

Ever since I was a child, I loved to do two things: daydream and write.

Adults often scolded me for staring too long at what didn’t exist. I would nod, turn away, and return to the plot unfolding in my head. Words on a page became my bridge to imagination — only through the exertion of language could I give shape to the formless, wandering visions inside me. I rooted myself in paper; the page drank my ink, and I drank what later shaped my soul.

For a long time, I was a prose writer — I even despised poetry. To me, poetry felt like nonsense: strange metaphors merging things without reason. Why should my mother be a tree if her skin wasn’t bark? Why should poppy seeds overtake eyes? I was raised in a world where everything had to have meaning, where blue curtains meant sadness because blue meant sorrow. But then I read a poem where blue glowed holy, and suddenly, the rules no longer held.

Poetry became my emancipation — a place where empathy sprawls like vines, where I can mourn the trivial and praise the fleeting. It’s where I can say my mother is a butterfly rinsing black-blooded toenails, and that image is its own truth.

I’m thrilled to join Sundress Publications as an editorial intern, where I can harness this love for language, prose and poetry alike, into supporting others’ work. I look forward to helping writers bring their voices to the page and sharing that joy for the literary arts with our community.

Penny Wei is from Shanghai and Massachusetts. She has been recognized by the Longfellow House, Cafe Muse, and Just Poetry, amongst others. Her works are up or forthcoming on Eunoia Review, Inflectionist Review, Dialogist, Aloka, and elsewhere.