Before I picked up Robin Gow’s Lanternfly August (Driftwood Press 2023), I couldn’t imagine a rich, in depth fascination with lanternflies, or any bug, for that matter. Gow’s exploration of the oft overlooked, the things so carelessly crushed and destroyed for being invasive, invited me to see them, instead of just stamping out that which is different or other. Lanternfly August a fascinating entry into his body of work as a proud and prolific queer author, well-versed in the poetic canon in which he
belongs.

I love noticing moments of deception in poetry. Often the speaker hides a deeper meaning underneath their lines, and is strategic when revealing truths; Gow makes this look really easy. For example, in “Ant Trap,” it writes, “I / promise you, I know what it means to crave” (78). At a casual glance, you can see it knows its stuff (and it’s showing off a bit!). He is a well-studied poet, as is evident in the way he weaves multiple different styles into the collection. There’s a ghazal, an elegy, an aubade, and a handful of visually experimental poems that are just loads of fun to twist your head around to read. In an era where the merit and utility of the MFA is constantly and hotly debated in journals and on Reddit alike, it is nice to see a clear answer: Gow knows its craft so well, and you can tell because it’s practiced and polished in a way that can only be achieved through the sort of sanding down that an MFA program provides.

As a result, countless moments in these pages tugged at my heart while I read. In “Yard Sale,” Gow writes,

“For a few dollars

I will let you own the faint smell of my mother and

a quilt that comes alive at night and tries to heal you

with spoonfuls of olive oil. Then, also, the wall clock

only capable of announcing afternoons.” (77)

Here, Gow retreats slightly from the conceit of lanternflies, opting instead to dwell in a more casual entomophilia. It refers to the offerings in the yard sale as cradled “armfuls of species” and clothing from its past life as its mother’s daughter as dresses with “moth winged shoulders” (Gow 77) The suggestion of insect, of other, inserts this work in a larger conversation, without feeling shoehorned into an obscure subject matter.

We are treated to gorgeous existentialism in “Lanternfly Futurity.” Gow writes, “Tomorrow we will all be born again in a bowl of sugar. Will I still be / beautiful without my hunger?” (76). This is the heart of Lanternfly August, as we finally reach the place readers have been circling throughout the first half of the collection. Gow continues: “To be a lanternfly is to forget the future while somehow living / inside it” (76). Here, fae touches on so many of the central points of the book but, primarily, what it means to be trans to this author.

This specific poem teases out that feeling many of us artists have stowed away deep: the need to always reinvent the present self, to always be one step ahead. When Gow questions, “will I still be beautiful without my hunger?”, I hear, will I still be beautiful on the other side of the need to always reinvent myself as a person, as an artist? Further, when I have achieve accolades, and the need to earn a place in the artistic canon wanes (because I am there), will my work still be as good? As necessary? With Lanternfly August, Gow reaches beyond the confines of his pages in this work, took all of our hands, and said: I see you.

An important aspect of poetry, but specifically queer poetry, is an inherent act of defiance (perhaps even activism). By its very existence, and that of its author, queer poetry dares to be present and take up space. That being said, defiance can be messy, and can leave behind wounds in its wake. Always having to stand up and be present in spaces that aren’t always welcoming can be daunting, scarring. After healing, will I still be beautiful? It’s a heavy question to undertake, and yet Gow asks in such a plain matter that if you blink, you’ll miss it. Slotted in as the second sentence in this work — not the first — makes it an easy strike to miss, and yet this only demonstrates the author’s tactical skill and love for the artform.

Lanternfly August is available at Driftwood Press

Sierra Farrare, a skilled self-published author with an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts, proudly calls Baltimore her home. With an enduring passion for storytelling and a keen eye for detail, she can turn even people-watching into an extreme sport. When she’s not crafting her next piece, she can be found meticulously organizing her workspace or dissecting niche pop culture theories.

I do not just have a love for reading, but a love for books as well—the physical embodiment of the story in paperback form is my favorite, but I don’t mind a hardcover either. I admire the people who do not walk through life with back pain and bad posture because they are content with a kindle or ebook. I, however, am not that type of person. To me, my bookshelves stand almost like a work of art.

I am currently a senior in college, but when I return to my childhood home for breaks, I always look at my first bookshelf as the truest masterpiece I have ever curated.

“The Masterpiece” has been read many times over. It is four rows, stuffed without order, to hold 98 books. In addition to literature, there is a shocking amount of dust and trinkets (seashells, a high school diploma, the original box from the box set of The Selection series, etc.). Of course, the centerpiece is a hardcover set of all seven Harry Potter books.

“The Masterpiece” carries stories that strictly happen “in a land far, far away.” It is littered with magic, superpowers, and world-saving teenagers that possess some sort of extraordinary ability that they were unaware of until the first, maybe second, chapter of this trilogy (it was always a trilogy). There are diamonds in the rough, here, that have withstood the test of early adulthood (Red Queen, Cruel Prince, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games), but the majority of them are books that you only realize are unintentionally hilarious upon forethought. This recognition only makes it more amazing and magical that I held them so close to my heart, and with such sincere care as a kid. 

A moment that is not rare amongst those who love books is the moment you realize that you need another bookshelf. Mine did not come to me, but rather to my mom, no longer delighted with books splayed across various random surfaces. Thus, I was gifted two more bookshelves to reel in the damage, and they are towering. 

Half way through filling up one shelf, I suppose I was no longer satiated by tales of magic and happy endings. Mysteries, contemporaries, biographies, and historical fiction are stacked towards the bottom. They are all sun bleached, the borders yellowed, the covers lighter, and the pages softer. This is because when I was 16 I got my first job as a lifeguard. The change in genre preference most likely came as a result of me not wanting to explain to my coworkers that I was on the seventh book in a nine part series about fairy warriors overthrowing the corrupt fairy government in a fantastical land, that is actually part of a much broader fictional universe, when they casually asked me “What are you reading?” For all parties involved, it was much easier and more normal to answer, “Michelle Obama’s memoir.” And so, my bookshelf began to be filled with realistic fiction, and even nonfiction (a concept that would have made fifteen-year-old me shudder with boredom).

The books that I read as a sweating, miserable, and overly dramatic high schooler, sitting in 100 degree heat at my first job, are stacked together in unity and remembrance of that time. Paper Towns by John Green became an important book to me that summer because the concept of a literal paper town encouraged—and gave importance to—my feeling that fiction could be powerful, and that it had the ability to embed itself into reality. The story took place in a suburb of Florida, and I, as the characters, grew up in a suburb in Florida and wanted more than it could offer me. 

Deciding which books to bring to my first semester of college was a month-long thought process. Should I bring just the ones that I haven’t read yet? Should I bring the ones that I know I love so things can feel a little bit more like home? Should I trust the library and pack sparingly; it’s hard to move everything you need for college in the first place? 

I cannot even describe the emotional toll that leaving the Twilight series behind took on me. I would bring it back with me after I came home for winter break because me and Edward Cullen just could not spend another semester apart.

As I said, college complicates life for a book lover because your books exist in a sort of liminal space—some come with you, some stay back, some are acquired here, there, in airports, on road trips, and then you bring them home to your childhood bedroom and just start stacking.

When I look at my bookshelf at home, I think of where I was when I read it: physically, mentally, what my favorite song was, where I started the book, where I finished it, what it meant to me back then and what it means to me now. I am reinvigorate with reading, reminded of the many ways these books have changed me, and reminded why I came to love reading in the first place. 

When I look at the stacks of books I have in my college apartment, compared to the ones I grew up surrounded by, I see that I now read to understand the world around me, rather than to take a break from it.

I suppose that is what growing up is, and I suppose my shelves, stacks, and piles of stories tell a bit of a story about me. For that, I am content with the back pain that carrying a book gives me, and will continue to avoid the temptation of the ever-appealing ebooks. 

Caitlin Mulqueen is a senior at the University of Tennessee majoring in English and Journalism. She loves reading, playing piano, watching sports, and the Oxford comma. She has worked as an Editorial Graphics Production intern at ESPN, is a copy editor at The Daily Beacon, a student writer for Tennessee Athletics, a graphics and video operator for the SEC Network, and a marketing/social media intern for the Knoxville Ice Bears. With the majority of her undergraduate work being in sports media, literary media has remained her sincerest passion, finding stories that come out of sports to be as moving as those from literature.

These days, I try to visit libraries more than bookstores, but the damage to my wallet has already been done. The books I own are easily the most valuable thing in my home, both monetarily and emotionally. Though, remembering my brother’s complaints about the heaviness of my boxes while helping me move, I doubt I will come home one day to find a thief has stolen my books. Some of my books are below my tea collection on the shelf pictured above. Others are in odd places in my apartment. A few have taken a permanent place in my tote bags or near my bed. Most of my books were bought used and hold small reminders of their previous owners; old plane tickets, receipts, stickers, photos. When I finally sat down to read Edward Said’s memoir, twenty dollars silently slipped out of its pages and into my lap. Some books are well-loved, others not so much. Most of the books bought after a recommendation from a teacher or friend fall into the latter category, but maybe I’m just a picky reader. Other books I bought before being recommended them, namely Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks. One professor excitedly told me about a Palestinian play being shown at a local theater, which turned out to be a playbook I already owned: The Shroud Maker by Ahmad Masoud.

Despite not writing much fiction myself, fiction is what I consume the most of. I cannot rave enough about The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafa, but my favorite book is The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa. It isn’t Abulhawa’s most popular book by any means, but I’ve yet to find another work of art that has moved me the same way, though her other books have also brought tears to my eyes. My poetry collection collects the most dust. I do love (most) of my poetry books very dearly, but I just don’t consume poetry as easily as I do fiction and nonfiction. I like to read poems unrushed so I can take the time to contemplate and annotate. I like to read poems freshly showered. I like to be warm and comfortable when I read poems, with a candle blazing quietly and a little drink near by. This sort of free time has become rare to me as a student, so most of what I read is assigned to me for class. Though I was required to buy and read these, I’ve grown to love and learn from Marwa Helal’s Ante Body and Customs by Solmaz Sharif. My love of fiction and poetry collide with a flower from my family’s pomegranate tree on Tar Baby by Toni Morrison in the form of a signature that does not belong to Toni Morrison. A poet signed Tar Baby for me after I met him with Morrison’s book in my bag instead of his own. I sometimes wonder if authors could recognize their signature among other vague squiggles. If you can guess who signed my book, give yourself a pat on the back.

I cannot write about my books without including the nonfiction that helped shape my view on the world, like the classic by Edward Said, Orientalism, or others, including Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. I would be doing a greater disservice to myself if I didn’t mention the most influential author in my life: my grandfather. In 1948, my grandfather was expelled from his home and land in the Palestinian village of Ishwa’ outside Jerusalem. His attempts to return were cut short after his imprisonment by Zionist militias, but he never stopped trying to return to Ishwa’. His priceless memories of his village and people were published in Ishwa’: a Palestinian Village in 1998. The book is a preservation of Ishwa’s history with testimonies from my grandfather and other Nakba survivors. David Ben-Gurion famously once said about Palestinian refugees, “The old will die and the young will forget.” My grandfather and family stand as just one refutation to this statement. Our old live after death and our young are born with the memories of the Nakba.

Hedaya Hasan is a Palestinian writer and designer based in Chicago.

Where threads of culture, family, and faith intertwine, lies Nomenclatures of Invisibility (BOA Editions, 2023). Navigating the liminal spaces between past and present, homeland and adopted country, Mahtem Shiferraw skillfully weaves together a tapestry of verse that speaks to the heart of the immigrant experience. Through his evocative imagery and lyrical prose, Shiferraw invites readers into a world where identities are constantly in flux, shaped by the ghosts of ancestors and the weight of inherited trauma.

The core of Nomenclatures of Invisibility is stated openly in the starting poem, “The Eucalyptus Tree I.” Writing, “Everywhere we go, we smell of death / and something sweet” (9), Shiferraw immediately plunges the reader into a lush world juxtaposed by color and grief. This whole collection, too, follows death, yet combines it with motifs of nature. In the title poem, “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” Shiferraw writes,

Here, Shiferraw paints a bright image for the reader, imagining the loss of memories and personhood due to the voyage (as part of the transatlantic slave trade). With the lines,  “When white faces sprout, / we are told to set ourselves ablaze” (10), she addresses the involvement of colonialism within the process of her family history. Shifferraw also writes: “the loss that follows us everywhere: /  behind mountains, past oceans, into / the heads of trees, how to swallow / a tongue that speaks with too many accents?” (10), showing the impact of those structures onto their individual personhood.

This idea of death haunts the reader throughout the collection. In “the Slaughter,” death is not simply mentioned but becomes the refrain. Shiferraw writes: “By this, we know to expect / the slaughter, and though our deaths are / not new, the dread will always break us open” (45), once again showing the amount of brute violence within her family’s past.

Shiferraw boldly confronts her roots and adds depth into her lineage, breaking past generational and other larger, institutional molds. The poem “Wuchalle” is a perfect example of Shiferraw’s poetic challenge. Written after the Treaty of Wuchalle, in which Italy claimed protectorate over Ethiopia, “the Italians, in Ethiopia, / granting anything, which implies: permissions, / relinquished” (22). Later on in the poem, Shiferraw questions the etymological nuances behind ownership of not just land and people, but also of language. Writing through the full history of the word of Ethiopia, but also keystone events in Ethiopia’s history,  Shiferraw culminates the resistance of her work in the poems’ final lines: “all over our bodies, suddenly spewing outwards / the insidious ways of ownership” (28). The idea of possession as colonial is something which Shiferraw hinges on through this whole piece, and with these two lines, she hits her point home. 

Another motif Shiferraw employs is that of the body. In “War,” Shiferraw exemplifies: “all things foreign – note: referring / to me, or, my body, as a thing; an object – are / made of war, or: things infested by war” (#). Similarly, in “Black Thing,” she writes, “we wear these maps on our bodies, / filled with bone etchings” (54). Here, Shiferraw uses the body and its parts as a metaphor for the different ways which history and lineage of colonialism has imprinted upon her. Yet, Shiferraw also radicalizes the body as a form of memoir and beauty. For example, in “Transcendence,” she writes of a woman whose “skin browns, henna drizzling / with the maps of ancient cities / she understands are found in her belly” (52). In “Mother Mango II,” Shiferraw directly compares her mother to a mango tree, writing, “Mother grows tall and orange; / everywhere she goes, a small / sun adorns new horizons” (65). The tone here becomes more hopeful and positive as Shiferraw changes our perspective of the body not just as a basin of hurt but also love and joy. 

Near the end of the collection, Shiferraw too seems to have undergone the same metamorphosis, writing in “Little Fires” that “I take these little fires / with me everywhere I go” (73). She has understood the differences in which her body—along with other female bodies—can be used for good, utilizing that confidence for herself to create change.

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is a collection full of promise, growth, and emotion. By the end, readers will not only understand the deep cultural roots behind Shiferraw’s work but also emerge freshened from their previous connotations on the body and language. As Shiferraw writes herself at the end of “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” “This kind of language we know; / naming new things into our invisibility / and this, we too, call home” (13).

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is available from BOA Editions.

Saturn Browne (she/they) is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant and the Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate, East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) Artist in Residence, and the author of BLOODPATHS. Her work has been recognized by Gone Lawn, GASHER, Beaver Mag, Pulitzer Center, Foyle Young Poets, and others. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Yale University.