Category: Sundress Reads

Sundress Reads: Review of Agave Blues

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
The back of a person with long brown hair in a cream colored hat and a bright pink dress is shown. The person is facing the yellow, blue, and pink sky. The person is in a field of blue and turquoise agaves. "Agave Blues" is at the top with the author's name "Ruthi Marlenée" is at the bottom.

Simultaneously, our lives change and stay the same. We always end up where we began, our home. With regards to family, home can be complicated or simple or both. Each year I age, I settle into the idea of always needing to go home. In my late teenhood and early 20s, I demanded a reason to visit my small town in south Texas. A birthday party, an ill family member, celebration of new life and death itself. That demand has turned into a longing and gratitude to still have a reason because despite all of our differences, I want to know the stories that came before me.

Ruthie Marlenée’s Agave Blues (Pelekinesis, 2024) follows main character, Maya, on her journey home to Mexico upon her estranged father’s death. Marlenée playfully weaves history and family stories with Maya’s painful present as she reconnects with her daughter Lily, extended family and friends on their agave farm. She has spent her life avoiding the inevitable return after immigrating to America upon her mother’s quest to leave for good. Maya’s character states,

“There’s something about death you can’t escape. But I didn’t cry now over the death of my father. I cried over the death of my childhood; a childhood I’d never get back. And none of it had been my fault. I’d only been a kid.” (Marlenée 36)

Through spirits, a blue genie, tequila, and family, Maya’s past is unraveled. Pushed back in time she faces visions of her abusive, drunk father and his dark history that came before him. The more she learns, the more she forgives and rekindles her love for herself.

While on the farm, Maya spends time painting with the ghost of her childhood best friend Gabriel. He guides her back into creativity which she had forgotten she loved. By painting alongside him, she remembers to love herself and who she once was. Inevitably, she learns she has cancer just as she begins to be curious about the idea of staying. When sitting with her diagnosis she thinks,

“Time was a healer. But I also knew now that the denial and its consequences had indeed taken a toll. At that moment, I was happy to hang it all up in the back of the closet of my mind as if it were just last season’s old dream, so out of style. I’d spend no more time thinking about it and got out of bed.” (Marlenée 36)

What can weigh the most is not the fear of forgetting a memory but the fear that it will be with you forever. What we let sit in our bodies may decide to borrow deep and never leave. Maybe it is the ache in the back of your neck or the heavy drag of your right leg that has yet to find its way to the left or worst of all, the dull ache in your chest that makes you wonder if your heart has any more to give. When painting and seeing Gabriel’s old work, Maya witnesses a younger version of herself come to life. At first she doesn’t recognize the girl as she has been removed from who she once was for a long time. Yet, the more she visits her past self she becomes familiar. By seeing this version of herself, Maya is able to reconcile with her shadowed past. She is able to move forward and consider that instead of returning to California, Mexico might be the most healing place for her.

Reading this novel has reminded me of my drive south to my small hometown. I watch the flat land littered with oak and cactus flash by the windows. I see the train tracks as I enter the town and homes I once knew. My childhood friends appear young again, walking down the street translucent. The Texas sun peering through them like ghosts, and I know they aren’t really there but it sure feels like they are. I see many versions of myself running through the yard I was raised in. Like Maya, we return home for a reason only for the reason to end and wonder why we wanted to leave in the first place. There is something peculiar about growing up to realize there are just as many reasons to stay as there are to go.

I feel there are many more ways this novel can conjure home for the reader. Marlenée does not shy away from stunning and detailed imagery. Even if you aren’t from Mexico or states along its border, the imagery can still trigger your sense of home because of the emotion that is held in it. There is something about the way she describes the landscape, weather, and even food that can be so universal but also deeply personal. Magic is working throughout these pages and I know I can’t be the only one who loves a good spell.

Agave Blues is available from Pelekinesis Press

Em Fullenwider (she/they) is a queer writer/poet born and raised in south Texas who received an MFA in poetry from Texas State University. They are currently working on a full length poetry collection and value building and maintaining community in Texas. You can catch them making coffee and craft or listening to good tunes in their free time. 

Sundress Reads: Review of And Yet Held

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
The cover of And Yet Held by T. De Los Reyes. It features a woman whose face is obscured by tiny blue flowers.

In T. De Los Reyes’s latest chapbook, And Yet Held (Bull City Press 2024), each poem feels like the lyrical embodiment of coming home and sinking into a soft mattress. This sensation arises not from an absence of stressors (as internalized body stigma and a fear of humiliation permeate this book), but from the way mundane objects and small acts of devotion are magnified in the speaker’s eyes.

Familiar comforts are found in tender scenes of domesticity and in speculative vignettes, where the supportive presence of a significant other and the invigorating beauty of everyday life encourage the speaker to talk unabashedly about her affection. Here, De Los Reyes refuses to dress love in the thickest of metaphors, preferring to offer it with generosity through personal anecdotes drawn from her life.

Whether the speaker is watching ice cubes melt slowly in her coffee or noticing the satisfied quirk at the corner of her partner’s lips, every observation is steeped in reverence and care. Attentiveness becomes a comfortable language for the speaker to express her admiration and gratitude, as well as signal her anxiety in moments of distress. The maturity required to admit these emotions is linked to the speaker’s feelings about intimacy.

While some of these poems document healing through glimmers of confidence amid self-doubt, they remain cognizant of how the body can carry the weight of its past. In “Gargantuan,” the speaker recalls, “My childhood / was a city where tenderness was frowned upon” (De Los Reyes 35), giving us a glimpse into the shame that stained her youth. This pervasive sense of unease only fades as her present comes into view. A calm arrives because, unlike before, she no longer feels alone: for “you are now / holding my body” (De Los Reyes 35). Seemingly minute, an embrace has enormous impact, making its recurrence in the book a constant source of joy. Readers will delight in witnessing the speaker grow flustered and make excuses so that “you can be / the big spoon when I just really [need] / to be held” (De Los Reyes 2), a confession that lays bare our desire for proximity, physical contact, and most of all, safety.

This tight-knit chapbook also sheds light on the ways we cradle each other beyond tactile means. One can “feel held” upon receiving a lover’s gentle gaze from across a room (De Los Reyes 1). Or, one can invite a partner to “hold fast” as they “roam in each other’s memory” (De Los Reyes 4). Through knowing glances and expressions of trust, De Los Reyes wields the word with renewed lucidity, reminding us of the opportunity to grant others the refuge that we ourselves seek. The task of making the world less daunting, she seems to say, is in our hands.

De Los Reyes is urgently aware that the time we have with the people we hold dear is fleeting, but she impressively never rallies against it; instead, the transience of life motivates her to slow down and savor each moment. This attitude is evident in her use of repetition, anaphora, and lists. In “Hard Heart”, De Los Reyes turns her appreciation inward:

“This is for the girl with the hard heart

This is for the girl
who […] tried her best

to play hopscotch with everything
she wanted to avoid

yes this is for the girl who refused to be bamboozled
with the small gestures of this sodden world.” (16–17)

Literary devices here allow past states to persist, insisting on their significance. Sometimes, they stress a powerful longing, while other times (as in the excerpts above), they are used to empower and acknowledge what the speaker has endured.

De Los Reyes also foregrounds the need for autonomy by anchoring many of her poems to a specific “I”—one who is inescapably conscious of her gender, weight, skin color, and Asian features. In a changing room, the speaker recalls, “He asks me for my dress size / and I hesitate” (De Los Reyes 29), and at a party, she remarks, “I’m what some / would call an acquired taste” (De Los Reyes 9). The decision to talk frankly about this “baggage” doesn’t drag the book down, rather it carries it, sharpening the speaker’s frustration and illuminating her relief.

This specificity spoke to me as a Filipino reader, who not only smirked in recognition of some typical Pinoy experiences, but saw myself reflected in the speaker’s gestures of affection, which could be as simple yet resonant as asking a loved one whether they’ve eaten. It got me thinking about my recent experience of moving out and realizing how much stuff I’d accumulated. It just seemed second nature—my habit of keeping everything I loved all clumped together, an impulse that could extend to the chapbook’s preoccupation with (re)collection and safekeeping.

A tour de force in tenderness, And Yet Held is a heartwarming display of devotion, vulnerability, and trust. De Los Reyes’s refreshing and imaginative fascination with the everyday offers solace amid hard times, making this the perfect book to read as you unwind after a long day. The chapbook’s commitment to immersion rather than distance serves as a needful reminder: that while it’s okay to be cautious about the people to whom we assign our care, we could be so much more sustained when we welcome others’ lives to touch and overlap and be held together with our own.

And Yet Held is available from Bull City Press

Aylli, a fair skinned person with short brown hair, sits cross-legged on the grass. He is wearing wide frame glasses paired with a black crew neck top and blue jeans. Small purple flowers and various plants fill the upper half of the background.

Aylli Cortez (he/they) is a transmasc Filipino poet and creative writing graduate of Ateneo de Manila University, where he received a DALISAYAN Award in the Arts for Poetry in 2024. His debut chapbook, Unabandon, is forthcoming from Gacha Press in June 2025. His work has appeared in VERDANT Journal, en*gendered lit, Bullshit Lit, HAD, and like a field, among others. Based in Metro Manila, he is currently a poetry reader for ANMLY and a member of the Ateneo Press Review Crew. Find him online @1159cowboy or visit his website.

Sundress Reads: Review of String

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
The word "string" is in the center of the image. Thin strands of red string are tangled and spread out in the image. The background is a light tan color. The author's name "Matthew Thorburn" is in smaller font near the bottom.

In String (LSU Press, 2023), Matthew Thorburn chronicles a teenage boy’s journey through an unnamed war. Thorburn brings a breathless quality to the entire volume, with almost no punctuation in any poem. Lines break randomly in the middle of sentences and phrases. Concrete poems seemingly resemble nothing while still floating strangely on the page. Disorientation and urgency ring all throughout Thorburn’s poetry collection,.

String is divided into four parts, each one roughly corresponding to the narrator’s experience of this war. Part 1 depicts the happy life before the war alongside the anxiety as war looms and Part 2 describes the devastation of living in a war zone. After beginning with rich, nostalgic narratives, Thorburn plunges unexpectedly into violence in, mirroring the way that conflict envelops civilian homes. In “They,” Thorburn creates the idea of a generic, violent “them” consisting of soldiers who “liked to throw things” such as “a woman down a well” (11). After establishing a serene, happy setting, Thorburn destroys any sense of security the characters possess and depicts the awful descent into chaos that occurs for the victims of conflict.

Thorburn’s outright refusal to name who or what is happening forces us into the lived experiences of conflict. We never learn what war or what part of the war String occurs in. We have no semblance of timeline or how long these characters suffer, nor how long the conflict itself endures. We aren’t allowed to think about politics or death tolls; the ideologies of any single side blends into a single wave of violence that falls upon the narrators’ home. Thorburn focuses us entirely on a single life and the devastation that war inflicts on that life. String is a deeply emotional, personal book in a place that seeks to rob its inhabitants of any sentimentality.

Part 3 guides the reader through the narrator’s choice to leave his home. Consisting of a single extended poem, this section investigates the string which ties the narrator not only to the people who love him, but to the past and present. Over the course of the poem, his string takes the form of a fuse, soldiers’ razor wire, a cursive line, and even an umbilical cord (Thorburn 43-54). This string represents the hold that the narrator holds on his world over the course of this conflict, as well as the sense of self that he maintains during his displacement. As he notes, “this string / I follow / and follow and / know I can / never stop” (Thorburn 52). This moors him to the present and past, but also tugs him relentlessly into an uncertain future; to end the collection, Part 4 investigates what it means to come back to one’s home after war.

String is not only about the disorientation that inhabitants of a warzone (and refugees) feel, but also about the way that comfort morphs in a war-stricken environment. Pianos, for example, are a symbol of comfort early in the book through depictions of the narrator’s family and friends playing together, and he revisits pianos in later poems as a way to show how comfort can rupture in times of war. After a bomb strikes, the narrator recalls how:

“bits of paper swirled behind my eyes

some with treble clefs with quarter

or half notes Uncle Albert penciled

years ago.” (Thorburn 34)

When the narrator’s physical home is obliterated, his mental comfort is as well. Perhaps no poem encapsulates this as well as “Shatterings,” which in part catalogs Uncle Albert (who was previously skilled on the piano)’s stroke. After the stroke, a gorgeous flow of notes becomes “a stutter of / knots nots notes nights / and days” (Thorburn 33). Much like war, the stroke turns order into disorder, blowing to pieces what made so much sense before.

Thorburn’s narrator can never really escape in spite of scattered efforts to either lighten the mood or escape reality entirely. Even as the narrator’s family friend tells him that “those wishing to sing / will always find a song,” the narrator recognizes that “only he spoke” (Thorburn 13). The narrator’s mother remains terrified in that scene as onlookers are completely unmoved by this man’s display of security. In another scene, the diversion of a magic show is repeatedly interrupted by war-related details like “the splintered tree out back,” bringing readers back to the painful reality of conflict (Thorburn 17). Reflecting on an old photograph of the narrator’s father, Thorburn remarks:

“Time stops the camera

says let me show you

how time hurtles on leaves

only this creased piece

of cardboard little square.” (6)

String as a whole is the narrator’s “cardboard little square,” the fleck of memory and hope he intends to pass on to the next generation.

All through his book, Thorburn is painfully aware of the frailty of nostalgia, the weaknesses present in any recollection. In language rich with horror and hope, Thorburn truthfully renders the human costs of war through the eyes of a single teenager.

String is available from Louisiana State University Press

Scott Sorensen is a junior at Dartmouth College studying English while performing standup, writing for the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern satire magazine, and helping edit the Stonefence Review. Scott dreams of becoming the first Latvian man to win an MMA championship, which is pretty unlikely given the fact that he is not Latvian and has no idea how to fight.

Sundress Reads: Review of The Whale Surfaces

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
A whale is jumping out of the ocean. The whale is black and white with blue tint. The ocean is unsteady and is black with the blue tint. The sky looks stormy with the blue tint. "The Whale Surfaces" is in big font below the whale and the author's name "Ruth Rotkowitz" is at the bottom. In smaller font, the words "Prequel to Escaping the Whale" is at the top of the image.

Ruth Rotkowitz’s novel, The Whale Surfaces (Okapi Press, 2021), is an exploration of inherited trauma set against the backdrop of post-Holocaust America. The world of The Whale Surfaces envelops its characters in a shroud of past horrors, leaving them to navigate a present tainted by history.

The world and characters of The Whale Surfaces are infested by their pasts. The protagonist, Marcia Gold, grows up surrounded by stories of the pain and terrors her parents—Holocaust survivors—experienced in their youth; she is haunted by ghosts that are not her own. When Marcia complains about having to visit her grandparents one weekend, upset that her brother isn’t similarly bound by this familial duty, her father violently snaps, yelling, “What’s not fair? That you have grandparents who are alive when so many people have no grandparents! When so many grandparents were killed in Europe, like Mom’s parents… You don’t know how lucky you are!” (Rotkowitz 19). Unfortunately, while Marcia’s parents may intend for knowledge of this family history to instill more appreciation in Marcia for her daily life, it instead causes Marcia to feel undeserving and view herself as “a worthless parasite” (Rotkowitz 47).

Acutely aware of her parents’ past, Marcia’s life becomes one of constant hypervigilance and fear. Attuned to potential threats, Marcia becomes separated from her present reality. Since childhood, Marcia would have inescapable nightmares, causing her to toss and turn and scream in her sleep. Simple acts like her mother leaning into their apartment’s dumbwaiter to talk to her aunt upstairs would trigger Marcia’s panic over an imagined decapitation. Marcia is unreasonably enraged by her mother’s action, unable to understand why her mother couldn’t understand the contraption’s danger. 

Marcia’s unease extends to her time in the classroom, where she meticulously chooses her seat based on proximity to an exit in preparation for any catastrophic events. In one of her first college classes, Marcia immediately slides to a seat in the back row “so she could feel safe” (Rotkowtiz 36). From Marcia’s point of view, “Stormtroopers in big boots, Nazis with rifles, anyone at all could suddenly burst into the room and start killing…But she, in her chosen seat, would be able to make a quick getaway out that back door, if need be” (Rotkowitz 36). This constant alertness makes it difficult for her to relate to peers and friends, leading to intense feelings of isolation even during seemingly pleasant moments, like shopping with her girlfriends.

One of the novel’s most compelling elements is its depiction of how historical trauma is internalized and transmitted. Throughout The Whale Surfaces, Marcia has extended visions of a large whale—sometimes threatening to swallow her family, other times offering protection—which illustrate the conflicting relationship survivors and their descendants have with their traumatic past. In one particularly vivid childhood vision at the beach, Marcia sees a massive whale emerging from the sea onto the shore, its gaping mouth pouring out an endless stream of goose-stepping Gestapo soldiers. In Hebrew school, Marcia’s teacher recounts the biblical story of Jonah at dinner, and Marcia is initially terrified by the idea of being swallowed by a whale. However, at dinner, her mother offers an alternative perspective, saying, “Jonah is certain he will die when he gets thrown into the sea. But a whale saves him. He is safe and protected inside the whale. The ocean can’t harm him” (Rotkowitz 21). This duality illustrates how trauma can be both terrifying and a source of resilience, with the past offering both fear and, paradoxically, protection.

Marcia’s experience is further complicated by the gendered expectations placed upon her by her parents. While her older brother Eliot enjoys freedom—attending college away from home, dating openly, and living on his own—Marcia is constantly scrutinized and discouraged from pursuing her own desires. This disparity exacerbates her feelings of alienation and guilt, as she struggles to reconcile her family’s traditional values with her own yearning for independence.

Marcia comes of age during the 1960s, a period of intense social turmoil. She feels guilty about her relatively comfortable life and experiences intense empathy for victims of tragedies such as the Munich Massacre and the Kent State shootings. Rotkowitz skillfully portrays Marcia as a nuanced and complex character, whose empathy and moral compass—shaped by her family’s traumatic history—may not always align with readers’ expectations. Through Marcia’s struggles to process global events and personal relationships, including her friendship with the troubled Natalie, Rotkowitz invites readers to reflect on their own responses to tragedy and the complexities of human empathy. 

The Whale Surfaces isn’t all anxiety and fear. Rotkowitz’s characters strive for normalcy—they fall in love, they make difficult choices, they experience joy and embarrassment and empathy. Marcia uses her studies to ground herself. Her parents struggle to protect their children while grappling with their own past. Rotkowitz handles potent feelings such as guilt, fear, and loneliness with grace. 

Rotkowitz inspires readers towards openness and care, offering hope in The Whale Surfaces that our world may foster more compassion for the hidden burdens many carry. A call for understanding and empathy lurks beneath the novel’s exploration of Marcia’s struggles: while we cannot erase the past, we can strive to recognize its impact and support those still grappling with its legacy.

Sophia Zhang is a Chinese-American writer from California. Her poetry and memoir—which centers around diaspora, joy, and womanhood—has been recognized by YoungArts, Columbia College Chicago, The Pulitzer Center, and others. In her spare time, she likes to browse thrift shops and binge movies. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Harvard University.

Sundress Reads: Review of Meta Work

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
This is a collage of abstract objects such as a grid, stars, and paint throughout the image. There is also half of a face at the bottom right corner. "Meta Work" is in the middle of the image and "Autofiction by Anastasia Wasko" is at the bottom in smaller font.

Anastasia Wasko’s Meta Work (Planet Dust Enterprises, 2021) is a dissociative fever dream wearing the skin of creative nonfiction. The only question is: what type of creative nonfiction? 

A memoir, fittingly, places emphasis on memory. A personal essay explores a life lesson. More often than not, these lines become increasingly blurry as a writer searches for truth within the chaos of memory. Such was Wasko’s challenge writing Meta Work as a memoir, which couldn’t “hold [her] vision of [her] world” (5); wanting to preserve the fantastical, irrational elements of her life, Wasko turned to the genre of autofiction, in which the only promise is an authentic portrayal of herself. 

Through a blur of events and imagery, we readers are only offered one tangible detail: the chapter titles, denoting the location from which Wasko writes. The rest is up to her world of chaos, containing a mannequin with fiery, burning eyes; a river pooling at her ankles in the middle of Eighth Street; a depressed mother whose emotions swing like swords; a repressive father who refuses to consider writing as work; and, most importantly, unreliable time. Despite Meta Work being in chronological order, hours are missing from the story. Wasko’s time skips from 9AM to 5:45 (AM? PM?) to 9PM with no preamble, unobserved. She often breaks from her dazes to ask, “Where am I?” (Wasko 44). The gaping holes in her life are jarring to read, but these absences are intentional—we don’t know what happened, and neither does Wasko. This is, exactly, how she experiences day-to-day life. 

In fiction, as in trauma, there is truth in suffering. In order to simply live, Wasko must navigate an unyielding series of challenges. Existential dread and past trauma is compounded by the divorce of her parents, bipolar disorder, and a sense of insignificance—one she attempts to fight by working as a freelance marketing writer going in and out of the City. 

The City operates as a “mirror” (47) to portray Wasko’s internal chaos, but more specifically, a hatred; she despises her inability to reconcile her trauma and disorder with the rest of herself, and represses as a result. Primarily, this applies to her everyday emotions. After suffering a panic attack inside her office cubicle and being fired (banished) from the concrete jungle, Wasko finds dissociative comfort on the steps of Madison Square Garden. Later, though she swore she “would never come back to” Greenpoint as it “held too many memories” (25), she stays at an Airbnb there because it’s closer to her job. The City forces her to confront herself, and at every turn Wasko prefers to hide: sometimes even running back to her childhood home in Kingston to avoid looking into herself. 

This repression, naturally, inhibits her creativity. Writing is an expression of her chaos, and chaos is antithetical to being a functional member of society: therefore, throughout Meta Work, Wasko fails to write this very novel. We readers can see the way she’s holding back from herself. Wasko’s psyche and writing shine as a breathtaking whole during her worst moments of fear, exhaustion, and suicidal ideation, yet these are always short-cut. There is always work to do, rent to pay, and a need to keep moving; there’s no time for deep introspection nor emotion in Wasko’s life, only matter-of-fact compartmentalization, so there is none in her writing either. Wasko’s candor in refusing to fabricate what is missing, nor withhold from what is there, offers us a gut-wrenchingly authentic portrayal of what life is like as a flesh bag of trauma responses and unbalanced chemicals too busy surviving to heal. Imagery flits. Reality falls apart. Still, we know how Wasko feels about her absurd, confusing existence, and are helpless to watch her suffer.

Only after the death of her overworked father and the disabling of her mother due to electroconvulsive therapy does Wasko find her turmoil too heavy to ignore. Only then does she recognize, she must heal through expression. Through surrender to her inner self, engaging deeply and intimately with her desire to write, Wasko transcends her hatred of chaos—symbolized literally by the finishing of this book and the subsequent burning of a previous (failed) draft. She embraces the surreal nature of her life and revels in the blurred lines between fact and fiction, writing:

“I stood on the edge of the platform, and I vomited, and I cried, and I wretched, and I screamed, and I let go. I’m standing by myself at the track in the subway station at Grand Central, and this didn’t really happen, but it happened here on the page, and therefore it happened… It may not be factually true, but it is emotionally true. The experience of fiction and fact healed me.” (71) 

The final chapter skips several long years into the future, where Wasko has built herself a life wholly surrounded by writing.  She now “loves” (Wasko 81) the chaos, understanding that healing from it has served as a powerful driving force for her creativity. For, as Wasko writes in her introduction, “The truth is the chaos itself… This is meta-work” (5). 

Meta Work is available from Planet Dust Enterprises

SINDUS Kim (any/all) is a writer & fan of the odd, off-putting, and preternatural. Though they have a penchant for fiction and CNF/essays, their Word document dedicated to bad poems about their ex-girlfriend well-exceeds fifty pages. You can find him at his completely empty Instagram and Twitter @sinducated, or her website, where she’s open to all kinds of small talk and inquiries.

Sundress Reads: Review of I Feel Fine

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
An image of the cover of I Feel Fine by Olivia Muenz shows a black background with patterns of concentric, cream-colored rings, and a cream-colored circle in the center of the cover.

In her debut poetry collection, I Feel Fine (Switchback Books 2023), Olivia Muenz works in a space between lyric poetry and memoir, chronicling an intimate experience and understanding of neurodivergence, disability, and othering from the world. Muenz began her work on this poetry collection following several months of being bedridden. Her writing reflects this experience via the close and contained style of it, with poems being constructed in stark fragments of text that enmesh the reader in a rhythm of thought that tracks throughout the collection. Within these poems, the reader begins to look at the world from the outside-in, contained within the staccato lyricism of Muenz’s lyricism. 

Muenz’s poems play with both blunt affirmations of presence while in the following breath questioning if that presence is real, mirroring the way that disability and neurodivergence can lead to experiences of challenged identity, and societal dismissal. The four sections of this poetry collection illustrate this undulation between identity and othering, titled as “I’m here,” “But not,” “Or am I,” “Let’s see.” The first section of the collection begins each poem with an affirmation of place, before unfolding into fragmented wonderings:

“Here is the world. We are in this together. The body pulls. In 

toward itself and toward all of us. That is all we need. Am I 

doing this right. Where was I again.” (Muenz 5)

The way in which the writing spirals around itself, struggling for affirmation of place and presence even as it tries to convince itself of presence, draws the reader into the gauzy folds of the persona’s mind in these poems. When Muenz addresses a “we” or “you,” it’s possible she could be addressing the reader, wrapping them closer into this contained world; or, she could be addressing the relationship between the self, the body, and the mind, how within the experience of disability and neurodivergence, this relationship can become a tedious and exhausting dance in a world that demands conformity. Muenz writes: “I pump myself one-handed. I use all my weight. I am so / tired. The whole world is a mirage. Where does this thing end” (21). The wondering about endings and boundaries also speaks to the blurring in addressing “we” and “you,” as the reader becomes entangled with the persona of these poems, drawn further in to these meditations on the self and identity.

Punctuation is deconstructed and reimagined in a way that challenges expectations and lends to the fragmentary quality of the collection. With sentences that stop and start unexpectedly, Muenz creates a web of new meanings for otherwise simple phrases. In this way, the feeling of alienation or othering from the normative world is made richer and almost palpable in the poems of this collection:

“But I am the Big Normate. I am fitting in. Fine I am. Up to my 

ears in normal. I am business. As usual. I am nothing. To see here.” (Muenz 27)

Almost mantra-like in this fragment’s insistence on conformity, the fragmentary nature of the sentences challenges the very conformity that we are trying to be convinced of. This creates a sense of frustration that anyone who identifies as neurodivergent or otherly-abled can understand, navigating a world that often demands things they cannot perform, while also invalidating and disappearing their experiences. Indeed, Muenz touches on this frustration with near breath-taking clarity:

“Should I get

It checked out. Should I bring it up again. The no ones aren’t 

listening. I can’t make it. Louder in here. It is hurting all over.” (28)

With simple stark phrasing such as this, Muenz captures the pain and subsequent fatigue of alienation with a crystalline precision, leaving an ache in the reader’s chest, and a deep recognition for those who understand what it means to be othered in a society that demands conformity and productivity.

The final section of the collection pushes back against the othering and tenuous identity contained within the first sections, calling for a claiming of presence and space even amidst the fragmented pain. Indeed, if the collection is read as a conversation between the self, the mind, and the body, this last section reads as a homecoming to all three. Each poem begins with “let’s,” both a suggestion and an imperative to rejoin something, or someone:

“Let’s give it some room. To breathe. It’s soaking up fine. It’s 

taking the coarsest course. Bring me on home. I won’t stop

 at third.” (Muenz 56)

Through struggling to conform to a society that is all but inhabitable for those who do not fit the narrow definition of normal, Muenz ultimately concludes with a renunciation of that very society. She instead turns toward a radical redefinition of identity, and a claiming of new space and presence that affirms the experience of neurodivergence and disability. Muenz’s poems bear witness to the pain, the beauty, and even the mundanity of a life lived within and between these identities. 

I Feel Fine is available at Switchback Books.

A white woman with short blonde hair is standing in front of a brick wall looking at the camera.

Addie Dodge is a student at Colorado College pursuing a B.A. in psychology with a minor in English. She is a writer currently working as an editor for her college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and is also a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter in Colorado. She fills her free time with hiking in the mountains and lots of reading. 

Sundress Reads: Review of Maker of Heaven &

The Sundress Reads logo depicts a black and white line drawing of a cartoon sheep sitting on a stool holding a cup of coffee and a book.
The cover of Maker of Heaven & by Jason Myers depicts an abstract piece of art with the top half of the cover being comprised of brown and cream brush strokes, and the bottom half of the cover being comprised of dark and light blue brush strokes.

In Maker of Heaven & (Belle Point Press 2023), Jason Myers invites readers into a rich accounting of our brutal world. He draws out moments of distilled wonder, seeking to savor what can be made sacred while also delving into the wreckage of our humanity. The poems in this collection are suffused with awe, mundanity, and the stark truths of destruction that accompany it all, creating an almost mythic dialectic that allows holy to live alongside horror, sacred to mingle with strange. At its core, Maker of Heaven & is deeply rooted in the sensual world; the collection asks readers to take in the music, tastes, and textures of the poems in a new form of prayer, weaving a fine fabric of hope, joy, and frank sorrow throughout. 

What is most striking in the collection’s opening is Myers’ ability to braid the mundane with a far more expansive reality of our world. The first poem of the collection, “How To Make a Sound,” describes the experience of waiting for a child to be born in such a blunt way that it becomes almost humorous. Myers writes, “one day, after months of frozen dinners & cheap wine / binged series after binged series / a child arrived” (3). In this way, the poem contracts into a mundane moment, before expanding out into something full of awe:

“So, when I held, for the first time,

our son,

what slipped from my mouth was

part cry, part spill of almost verb, a word

like love, insufficient, immeasurable, & perfect.” (Myers, 4)

Myers’ poems breathe, ebbing and flowing between small, insular moments of savor, sorrow, and even boredom, to then expand out into something bordering on miraculous in how it captures distilled emotion. Particularly sound (and inversely silence) returns as Myers touches on music, language, and where they fail us in accounting for what is beautiful, ugly, and in between in this world. Meyers manages to weave it all together through sound and scene in “Maker of Heaven”:

“on a Thursday evening as you press your tired head to the glass of the bus

moving glacierly down Lexington Avenue past M signs

buskers offering their shattered delight to the harmonica’s incessant need,

a memory of the first time your tongue tasted the sugarsalt of inner thigh

astonishes you with gleeful nostalgia” (43)

The mundane becomes something close to miracle in Maker of Heaven &, drawing the reader into intimate moments of sensual memory that both smart and sing with how bittersweet they are.

Memory is also touched through music, drawing on both shared and personal history to bring together a rich and sorrowful accounting of the past. In the poem “On Learning Langston Hughes Wanted His Funeral To End With ‘Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me,’” Myers writes that “we all know a sound that knows us, that calls / & claims each moment of our lives / even in death we want a groove” (30). Myers weaves twentieth century soul and jazz music throughout Maker of Heaven &, bearing witness to the violence of racism that continues to rage in America, while at the same time holding the sweet miracle of song, from Robert Johnson and Johnny Hartman to Billie Holiday and Etta James. Music of the past becomes a way to understand the present and the future, in turn transforming the past into a religious text of its own, as Myers poignantly describes in “The Concord of the Strings”:

“But I am burdened

by stories not my own

that tell me what my own stories mean

& a music sticks, & grows, & rages

like trees carrying, through winter’s paucity, 

the violence of spring.” (28)

These lines can’t help but evoke Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” speaking of a violence and oppression that persists today. At the same time, Myers connects this music to his own memories, of records passed down by grandparents and rhythms that have followed him through his life. Myers holds the darkness of history and the intimate pleasure of memory at the same time in this collection, allowing both to exist alongside each other, rather than in spite of each other. 

Amidst the music and movement of this collection, moments of silence, stillness, and observation reveal pure awe in the most minute aspects of life, offering readers hope that there are still sacred things to find in the mundane. In “Eucharist,” Myers writes:

“I want the world in my mouth.

Walnut, avocado, nasturtium.

Icewine, edelweiss, dictionary.

Can you swallow sunset

I’ll try.” (67)

Like a dare or a call to action, Myers implores readers to take in as much of this world as they can, and to hold on tight. Finding the wonder, the horror—finding all of it, holding all of it, and in turn, holding hope. 

Maker of Heaven & is available at Belle Point Press.

Addie Dodge is a student at Colorado College pursuing a B.A. in psychology with a minor in English. She is a writer currently working as an editor for her college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and is also a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter in Colorado. She fills her freetime with hiking in the mountains and lots of reading. 

Sundress Reads: Review of Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility

The Sundress Reads logo depicts a cartoon sheep sitting on a stool holding a mug and a book.
The cover of Anna Laura Reeve's poetry collection Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility depicts a translucent farmhouse set in a field.

In Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility (Belle Point Press, 2023), Anna Laura Reeve draws readers into a stark landscape of myth-making, at times unflinchingly intimate while at others sweeping and vast. Through her visceral and frank accounting of motherhood and the orbiting discussions of fertility, identity, and mother-children relationships in the modern chaos of our world, Reeve forges a new mythology for mothers that defies all expectations; she acknowledges the rippling, tender underbelly of motherhood, its fears and wonders, its failings and surrenders. A vivid background of the natural world is woven within the poetry collection, providing another plait in this intricate braid of rich imagery and a stark eco-poetics that converses with our changing landscapes. At its heart, this collection feels like a battle cry for women, for mothers, and for holding onto all the wonderful, terrible threads of identity in the midst of perfect obliteration.

The collection opens with “Ars Poetica,” a poem almost confessional in nature, in which Reeve describes waking early in the morning to write before “It must be time / to wake my daughter, make the lunches” (xi). And thus, the split between artist and mother, something Reeve grapples with throughout the collection, begins. Reeve’s poem “Entrapment” speaks poignantly to this again, describing a distaste for the domestic in poetry:

“Reading poetry as a teenager, phrases 

like “my daughter,” “my son,” or “as I fold laundry”

extinguished interest like the smell of shit. The firm thud

of a diaper tossed in the trash

seemed to echo.

“Domestic tranquility” suffocated, like oil

On seawater.” (Reeve 61)

But Reeve challenges such discounting or disavowment of the domestic in her work by weaving her own myths and candor around it, wilding and bearing witness to the vacillating bleakness and brashness of motherhood. 

The first part of her collection opens with “The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale” a contained accounting of the earliest days of motherhood. The poem depicts the immediate aftermath of giving birth with a haunting stillness, power in the silence, and the smallest of details. Instead of a time of unfettered and easy joy, as modern media would often like to portray giving birth, Reeve provides and unflinching account of the pain and fear so often experienced by new mothers, describing how a body that has just given birth is treated “like when you empty your bag into the trash / scooping, shaking” (3) with another line following starkly: “my own body sewn back together with steel / or plastic, still bleeding” (6). Indeed, the domestic world that Reeve illuminates is at times wild in its waves of changing emotions—cresting in moments of despair and frustration and ebbing back in moments of wordless relief. 

As the collection progresses, the contained world of mother and child expands to encompass the Southern Appalachian landscape, with the second section of the collection providing extensive and rich observation of the changing seasons passing over flora and fauna, and the mountains so often returned to in Reeve’s poems. The cyclical changing of the seasons and the vegetation, death and rebirth, parallel Reeve’s exploration of fertility and miscarriage, and the raw hope and devastation that accompanies these cycles. The poem “Trying” spins into an extended metaphor in which reproduction becomes the tending of crops, and a woman’s pelvis becomes the field, another kind of domestic care, laced with a stinging desperation:

“When the farm’s bright February seedlings

Faded pink and purple in the greenhouse, starved

By nutrient-poor potting media, we started over.” (Reeve 28)

Indeed, in this section, the landscape and the body become deeply intertwined, with the conclusion of this section. “For Southern Appalachia” in which Reeve writes, “Blood thickens on the uterine walls for two weeks, then / sheds. The ouroboros belongs to me, and the crow, / cicada, and scoliid wasp” (43). Such lines evoke a melancholy acceptance and even gratitude for the cycle of life and death.

Situated within the realm of the domestic, Reeve defies conceptions of motherhood and its singular identity in a string of poems within the last section of the collection. The “Mad Mother” makes several appearances in the titles of pieces, all of which speak to a similar theme of resistance against the surrendering of all other identities at the feet of motherhood. “The Mad Mother Discovers a Third Way” and “The Mad Mother Joins the Resistance” speak to societal expectations placed upon mothers: “Good mothers take care of everyone else” (Reeve 68). Reeve deals a snarling and triumphant rebuke against these ideals with the repeated words “Defy it” (68), providing a quasi-mantra to mothers with “your work is the real work. The real work is defiance” (69). What Reeve calls for is a return to the self, exultant and sacred, in the face of societal expectations placed upon the good wife, the good mother. 

In “The Mad Mother Envies a Widow” she avows that “the artist who is a mother splits herself in two” (Reeve 81). Here Reeve calls for a restitching, a returning to the self, something that she seems to be moving toward throughout the collection. Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility is a challenge to that split, an accounting of that split in order to make it whole in a new wild and beautiful way.

Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility is available at Belle Point Press

Addie Dodge is a student at Colorado College pursuing a B.A. in psychology with a minor in English. She is a writer currently working as an editor for her college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and is also a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter in Colorado. She enjoys reading and hiking in the mountains in her free time. 

Sundress Reads: Review of Babe

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
"Babe" is near the bottom of the bright yellow background. Below that in smaller font is the author's name "Dorothy Chan."

In Dorothy Chan’s poetry collection, Babe (Diode Editions 2021), readers are transported into a vibrant and alluring world where pleasure reigns supreme. Through her masterful use of language and vivid imagery, Chan invites the audience to indulge in her inner world, one filled with movie star glamour, iconic beauty marks reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, and a faux blue fur coat that serves as a shield against exploitation while radiating both excess and fun. In this realm, the senses are tantalized by the allure of delicious food, evoking nostalgia and delight in the present moment—a mouthwatering burger with a caramel shake, kimchi pancakes, and egg-shaped jello—each culinary creation a testament to the pleasures of the senses.

At its core, Babe searches for connection through pleasure while delving into Chan’s complex identity as a Chinese woman subjected to fetishization. The collection unearths the predatory relationships she has experienced with older men in her past, shedding light on the intricacies of power, desire, and vulnerability.

Another major theme within the collection is the resistance of queerphobia; Chan details her reality as a bisexual woman navigating her queerphobic family.  Chan is a larger-than-life movie star outright denying the script of heteronormatity, the primetime TV reality show of life has laid before her. In “Triple Sonnet, Because You Are Not My Home, You Are Not My Home, You Are Not My Family,” Chan writes: “Hello, Primetime, your formula’s / so straight, it’s stale, but what would you know? / Basic cable you have no idea what you’re missing” (22). Throughout the collection, Chan skillfully intertwines themes of pleasure and identity with her exploration of family dynamics. Babe exposes the queerphobia and misogyny present within her familial relationships, adding depth to her narrative. The raw and candid portrayal of these experiences lends authenticity to the poems, allowing readers to empathize with Chan’s journey of self-discovery and acceptance.

In “Dear Lady Stop Gifting Me Lip Balm and Handcream,” Chan recounts a time an in-law speculates on her sexuality: 

“Lady it none of your business

what I do in my spare time

and my sexuality is not yours to dissect

not yours to straighten up…

But I’ll gladly build a rocketship

ride a rocketship orgasm a rocketship

if that will shut you up and fly you out of here.” (27) 

Chan at no point denies herself within the text, yet queerphobia constantly pushes back against her expression; forcing conflict over and over. She reminds the reader that to be authentically yourself is the ultimate freedom, but social structures in place, especially those within the most intimate spaces, mean that the battle to find and maintain your authentic self is lifelong. 

Chan’s poetic prowess shines through not only in her exploration of pleasure and identity but also in her innovative use of form. She introduces readers to her invented Triple Sonnet, showcasing her technical brilliance. The line breaks of these three connected sonnets are built around the sawtooth margin, with indents for every other line. These indentations build the tension in the reading of the poem. If the words of the poem are the food, the sawtooth margin is how your teeth should chew over them. It slows you down, makes you chew a little longer so the taste of the words linger over your tongue. This form becomes a vessel for her lyrical expressions, allowing her words to flow seamlessly and captivating readers with their rhythm and cadence.

In addition to her captivating descriptions of sex and pleasure, Chan creates an intimate connection with her readers through the lens of food. Food becomes a symbol of love and acceptance, fostering a sense of comfort and belonging. We see this on full display in her poem, “Love Letter to Jello Salad, Time Travel. And My Mother:” “ .. oh so colorful, and isn’t  it such a wonder / how different shapes can enhance the taste of food, like / the flower-shaped donuts in Japan, preferably in / matcha or strawberry, or how the heart-shaped / chocolates in the  Valentines Day selection always / taste the best” (12). The rich imagery of culinary delights further enhances the sensory experience of the collection, evoking a profound emotional response from the readers. 

Babe challenges societal norms and celebrates the complexities of identity, pleasure, and love. Dorothy Chan’s poetic voice is unapologetic, bold, and empowering. Her exploration of the human experience, intertwined with themes of pleasure, desire, and acceptance, resonates deeply with readers, leaving a lasting impression. Through her eloquent verses and inventive form, Chan invites readers to embrace their desires, confront societal barriers, and revel in the freedom of being true to oneself. “Babe” is a testament to the transformative power of poetry, reminding us of the importance of embracing our authentic selves and finding joy in the pleasures of life.

Babe is available at Diode Editions

Zora Satchel (she/they) is a Black and Chinese American queer poet and cinephile who writes about mental illness, film, family, and friendship. She holds a degree in Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University and was awarded the Brooklyn Poets fellowship for winter/spring 2021. She lives on the border of Brooklyn and Queens

Sundress Reads: Review of Fever

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
The woods here are tinted in a turquoise color. The tree barks have specks of green on them. There is two red spikes peeking out from the left side and the bottom right corner. "Fever" is in the middle and below that is the author's name "Shilo Niziolek."

Part bisexual awakening, part chronic illness memoir, Fever by Shilo Niziolek delivers a brutal, heartfelt recounting of the mostly-inner life of a queer woman whose body continuously betrays her. Told in untitled, fragmented vignettes, the book spans decades, reflecting on Niziolek’s past abusive relationship, addictions, her current partner, and her chronic health conditions.

Before the narrative begins, Niziolek greets readers with the definitions of two medical terms, one being “vulvar vestibulitis: a neuro-inflammatory condition in the vestibule, or opening of the vagina, in which inflammation starts from any number of a long list of reasons. This inflammation can cause severe pain during intercourse.” Upon seeing the definition, I was immediately excited to read this book. As a woman who also suffers from chronic vulvar pain, I was eager to hear another person’s experience of the challenges that appear when sex hurts. To my knowledge, the last non-medical publication about vulvodynia (an umbrella term for chronic vulvovaginal pain) is a book called The Camera My Mother Gave Me, written by Susanna Kaysen, who is better known for writing Girl, Interrupted. By simply writing this book, Niziolek contributes to a much-needed dialogue for a community of women that is much larger than one might think, with 16% of women in the U.S. suffering from vulvodynia at some point in their lives.

In a stream-of-consciousness style, Niziolek writes, “I wonder what it’s like to have a sexual body, not just a sexual being trapped inside an unsexual body (14). I felt seen when I read this, both jealous and grateful that this writer found such a succinct way to describe what many women go through when their bodies start saying no, when their minds still want to say yes.

After having vulvodynia for so many years, Niziolek rarely desires physical touch from her partner, which is a common occurrence for women who experience chronic vulvar pain. (Imagine that every time you eat a donut, you get punched in the face—you’re probably going to stop craving donuts at some point.) Thus, instead of moments of in-real-life sexual desire, this book is filled with desirous dreams. It’s almost like a dream journal—but forget the famous Henry James quote, “Tell a dream, lose a reader.” Niziolek poetically dissects her dreams and relates them to her real life, assigning them meaning and pulling in the reader.  

Early on, she questions her dreams and their potency, writing “What kind of woman have I grown to be, who only dreams about bodies on bodies?” (25). After journeying through her dream realms on the page, it seems she arrives at an answer, referring to her dreams as her “double-life, cheating on my waking life with this terrifying and exciting and vibrant and cruel other life” (162). For Niziolek, dreaming is not just playing in the imaginary, but a survival tactic—a brief escape from a bodily existence rooted in illness. The dreams are placed among other non-linear vignettes of her life, both real and imagined; the fragmented style serves as a reflection of the divide between her mind and her body.

At Niziolek’s MFA graduation ceremony, a professor acknowledges her writing, saying, “writing cannot restore the female body, broken into parts, the body in decline, but…writing can regain the body, the words on the page become their own body” (19). Like her dreams, the very act of writing this book is another coping mechanism: a space where she can question her sexuality and attend to every desire that pops up, even the most fleeting. In this way, the words on the page come alive, allowing Niziolek to carry out a version of her life in which she is not chronically ill. Like her dreams, she can love whomever she wants, however she wants, on these pages.

Chronic illness—especially invisible illnesses—can be isolating and lonely. In these pages, Niziolek builds a support system—and not just for herself. This is a must read for any person living with chronic pain, and especially for those living with chronic vulvar pain. It’s a great chance to step away from the medicalization of our bodies and to turn inward, meditating on how this condition affects our innermost being and finding ways to live and love around it.

Fever is available at Querencia Press.

Heather Domenicis (she/her) is an Upper Manhattan based writer and editor. She holds an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from The New School and her words appear or are forthcoming in Hobart, JAKE, [sub]liminal, and Anti-Heroin Chic. Born in a jail, she is writing a memoir about all that comes with that. You can follow her on Instagram @13heatherlynn1.