Blind to the Prairie (Bottlecap Press, 2025) by Tate Lewis-Carroll is a slow and tender reflection on seeing. In this collection of haiku, Lewis-Carroll captures the rhythms of the Midwestern landscape, capturing the very moments of its emptiness and subtle abundance. The chapbook invites the reader to slow down and notice the thin seam between perception and disappearance, in contrast to the fast-paced, modernized world around us. Through astonishing precision and modesty, Lewis-Carroll transforms the ordinary scenes of fields and geese into revelations of mindfulness, weaved between the philosophies of to see and to be seen.
Blind to the Prairie might appear deceptively small, yet each “breath-length” poem expands into an entire ecosystem of sound and silence. The chapbook opens with a preface in which Lewis-Carroll elaborates on their belief in the connection between haiku, nature, and peace of the mind. It reads like a manifesto, saying, “Our bowls are too easily filled. Our bones have become too dense for flight.” Haiku, a Japanese poetry form interwoven with the emptiness of the natural world, serves as a practice of unburdening, of learning to be filled with nothing. That philosophy reverberates through the collection, where the poet’s eye does not seek meaning in the prairie, so much as dissolve into it.
Early poems establish Lewis-Carroll’s blend of humor and careful, creative observations, reading,
“spring recital—
the clarinet section
wets their reeds.” ( Lewis-Carroll 3)
Through a simple metaphor, Lewis-Carroll makes the ephemeral tangible, depicting spring as a performance of lively beings rather than a season of unmovables. Similarly, they also draw the stagnant into the living through seven, simply syllables: “morning mist— / my neighbor’s silo comes and goes” (3), whereby personifying a man-made to be transient as fog, Lewis-Carroll captivates us into a world where the economic, sturdy beings are humbled to the natural world, creating a harmonious collaboration between what has been perceived as nonintersecting. Later, in a delightfully wry turn, “storming— / sunny / on TV” (4), the poet captures the absurd disjunction between mediated weather and lived weather, creating a funny contrast between the storm outside and the screen’s detached forecast.
These brief poems, though light in touch, are deeply anchored in observation. Blind to the Prairie documents a world in motion yet perpetually still. In “beyond fields, more fields,” Lewis-Carroll encapsulates the endlessness of the Midwest, the wandering of infinity where the flatness is perceived as both a physical landscape and a philosophical stance. Here, the repetition of “fields” suggests monotony and wonder, in which Lewis-Carroll sends forward an invitation to see sameness as an art of infinite variation.
Midway through the book, the haibun “White Prairie Fringed Orchid” acts as centerpiece, rooting the entire collection. Written in prose, it begins as a travelogue through Illinois farmland and turns into a reflection on the effects of environmental neglect. The narrator observes “litter glitters in sunlight among the overgrowth of clovers and poverty grass,” before discovering the endangered white prairie fringed orchid, framed as a delicate survivor in a field of monocropping corn. When the poet calls to the farmer, asking him to name this rare bloom, the farmer replies, “Weed.” That single word sets up the book’s tension, crafting and navigating the distance between human attention and voluntary blindness. The haibun does a great job of setting the scene and theme of the entire chapbook— which revolves around the often neglected details of nature. The piece prose highlights the theme of environmental pollution and contamination, weaved in between the scenes of nature appreciation.
This haibun recalls the ethical waves of Bashō’s journeys, yet it is distinctly American in its landscape and critique. The Midwest, with its “27 million acres of Illinois farmland” (10), becomes a mirror for human detachment from the natural world. Lewis-Carroll writes without scolding, and instead layers the piece with a blend of irony and tenderness: even in describing environmental destruction, there remains a tone of gratitude for what survives.
Lewis-Carroll’s language is spare yet sophisticated. Each poem functions under a haiku lens, bending light just enough to reveal the subtle textures of daily life. There is restraint in their use of sound with soft alliterations and consonants that mimic the rhythm of breath and the soft, capricious winds of nature. Their attention to line breaks is also impeccable with intentional designs of pauses. Take “ball of twine— / holding nothing together but itself (11)” as an example. The line break embodies the poem’s meaning: a taut suspension that almost, but not quite, holds.
Blind to the Prairie stands out for its craftsmanship. Bottlecap Press’s presentation of a crisp layout and generous white space, along with the luminous cover painting by Harold Gregor, all supports a minimalist aesthetic. The design and aesthetic of this book feels like an extension of its content, the sprouting of profoundness in the unassuming.
These poems in Blind to the Prairie will make you look twice at roadside weeds, moonlight and the cadence of your own breath. They restore wonder to the everyday and ask what it means to see truly. In a culture that moves too quickly, this collection offers the potency of stillness as a form of resistance and pensive, astute observation.
Penny Wei is from Shanghai and Massachusetts. She can be seen on Dialogist, The Weight Journal, Inflectionism, Headmistress Press and elsewhere. She has been recognized by The Word Works, Longfellow House and more. She loves cultural journalism.
Child of Light by Jesi Bender (Whisk(e)y Tit, 2025) is a complex and gripping story that explores identity, language, and family dynamics as Ambrétte Memenon journeys through discovering who she is and her supposed role in her family and society. To connect with her family members, Ambrétte learns the language of their interests, including Spiritualism and electricity—two seemingly different ideas that are more similar than she realizes.
Ambrétte tries to answer four questions about Spiritualism throughout the novel:
“What is Man?
What is Soul?
What is Spirit?
& What is Life?” (Bender 18)
As the story takes place mainly in 1896, thirteen-year-old Ambrétte is considered to be a woman. She learns that she needs to act differently and speak only when she is allowed. Her Maman and older brother Modeste Georges, especially, remind her constantly that she has more responsibilities and must act how society wants her to act. Her main goal should be to find a husband. Ambrétte questions this new role and not only what it means to be a woman, but also what it means to leave childhood. She thinks that “maybe childhood was for yourself and maturity was for someone else” because she does not feel like she has a say in anything (Bender 11-12).
However, because Ambrétte is “mature” now, she is excited to have more interactions with her Maman, who thinks Ambrétte is now smart enough to converse with her. Even after years of neglect, Ambrétte is thrilled her mother is acknowledging her because at her core, she just wants to be loved and keep the family together. The only reason Maman is interacting with her is because of Ambrétte’s supposed special gift that links her to spirits. She takes this as an opportunity to learn the language of Spiritualism to please her mother. She wants to master it because “more than anything, Ambrétte [wants] to be able to see these things for her Maman. To be able to give her some peace” (Bender 11). Instead of feeling used, Ambrétte is happy that she feels needed.
Ambrétte also works hard to comprehend the complex idea of electricity to not only understand her absent engineer Papa but also to help mend her parents’ relationship. Ambrétte’s Maman and Papa have an unstable dynamic and do not understand each other at all. Maman is passionate about Spiritualism while Papa is passionate about electricity. It seems like they have absolutely nothing in common with one another. As Ambrétte does her best to grasp both ideas, however, she discovers how Spiritualism and electricity are more similar than they seem. They both involve the persistence of life and energy. She wants to help bridge the gap between her parents by being that link in helping them understand each other.
Language, including French, Spiritualism, and electricity, is a significant theme throughout the novel and Ambrétte strives to understand all of them and their relationship with each other. She must do this because these are the languages of her parents. She thinks:
“When I was young, I never realized that everything has its own language. Music is a language just as French is a language, paintings and movements, a table full of elements—maybe spirituality is the same. Maybe I need to learn how to read your body like its own specific text” (Bender 59).
Ambrétte only knows how to speak English while Papa speaks French. Papa does not make the effort to learn English so she takes on the challenge of learning French instead to dig deeper into understanding the root of her parents’ relationship and to embrace another aspect of her own identity.
Bender demonstrates how Ambrétte also becomes fluent in French through the English translations that Bender adds in the passages. Her parents converse in French and when Ambrétte is translating in her head, she cannot make out some of the words. In the novel, the dialogue is written in French and then below that is as much of an English translation as Ambrétte could comprehend. There are many blanks in between the few words that she does understand. As the story progresses, Ambrétte becomes more fluent in the language and therefore, the English translations become clearer with no blanks. She understands everything and this understanding of French is parallel to how Ambrétte becomes fluent in the languages of her parents as well.
Ambrétte spends her days trying to learn different concepts to better connect with her family, even if it is unreciprocated. She wants to be the bridge connecting humans and spirits like Maman wants, but she also wants to be the bridge to connecting her parents with each other. She wants to save her family. She wants to be loved and feel needed. But as much as Ambrétte is trying to do the saving, who will save her?
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.
Patrick Joseph Caoile spoke with Sundress intern Penny Wei about his latest short story collection Tales from Manila Ave., where they discussed the importance of food, play as a way to navigate migration and displacement, and living on Manila Ave. and places like it.
Penny Wei: What does it mean to belong to a place like Manila Ave, where generational history and familial warmth live alongside eviction and social class divides?
Patrick Joseph Caoile: There’s a line from one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies that Freddy Krueger says, “Every town has an Elm Street!”, which seems to hold true. I even make a reference to this in one of my stories. In the case of Elm Street, the idea that a place is inescapable sounds like a prison. But that’s not all what a sense of place can be. For me, it’s comforting that you can find a Manila Ave. in places like Queens or Jersey City. When I lived in Lafayette, Louisiana, there was one there, too. Of course, not every Manila Ave. will have the equivalent of a strong Filipino community. Still, the name implicitly gestures towards the Philippines, and with it so many associations. With its global history as a gateway between the East and the West, the capital city of Manila is an avenue in and of itself. Manila is a metropolis of culture and commerce, but also of extreme class divide between squatters and shopping malls. In cities in the US, gentrification continues to displace those who can no longer afford to live in neighborhoods where their families have flourished for years prior. And yet, people continue to eat, dance, celebrate, mourn, and tell stories. This is how I envision Manila Ave.: a container of all these contradictions—a push and a pull, a home away from home.
PW: In several stories, food serves an important role. How do you see food operating as a bridge between cultures, identities, and memories?
PJC: I find importance not just in food, but in the making of it. When I think of Filipino food, I think of how laborious it is to make. In “Along Came a Stray” the siblings decide to roll lumpia for their Christmas dinner, just as they did when they were younger. They try to hold on to a tradition that they learned from their parents. Lumpia is a very tactile dish, a lot of chopping, mixing, wrapping. And after it’s fried and cooled, you pick one up with your fingers, dip it into some sweet chili sauce, and enjoy it. But it’s worth it. Not just the taste, but the experience. A recipe is a story, right? Beginning, middle, end. So, when I write food into a story, I find it intuitive to bring characters, backstory, and theme together. “Sinigang” definitely synthesizes those goals for me, too.
Even something as simple as coffee speaks to the wider implications of food. Coffee beans need to grow in a specific climate, be cultivated, be farmed, and be harvested. It takes a lot of labor to produce a cup of coffee. There’s also its history as a product of colonization. Alongside its dispersion is a story of displacement. On the other hand, as a beverage of leisure, you’ll find people connecting over coffee—business meetings, dates, catching up with friends, revolutions. Writers, like me, can’t write a single word without it. A lot of stories have been told over coffee. In “Kapé,” I sought to write towards these implications.
Also, I just like to eat and cook. Every writer needs sustenance. I’m a product of a childhood that was shaped by shows on PBS like Yan Can Cook and America’s Test Kitchen and Food Network, where people, food, and stories coexisted. Now, I love The Bear. I wanted to be a chef when I grew up. Maybe I still do.
PW: Catholicism, superstition, and faith run through these stories in different ways. What role does religion play in shaping the Filipino immigrant experience?
PJC: Just as food brings people together, so does religion. It’s all part of custom, like the house blessing in “A State of Grace,” the wedding in “Tong, Tong, Tong,” and the funeral in “A Balikbayan Affair.” These occasions bring together titos, titas, cousins, cousins of cousins, and anyone else who might have entered the celebrants’ lives in some way, big or small. Even the idea of being blessed by an elder, the mano po that is mentioned in “Tales from Manila Ave.,” is tied up in Catholicism. But as much as these customs celebrate grace, there are also aspects of Filipino faith that have a darker edge. Pagpag, for example, is the practice of making a tertiary stop between the site of a funeral and going back home; this way, any lingering or unsettled ghosts won’t follow. I don’t explicitly reference pagpag in “A Balikbayan Affair,” but that’s part of the reason why the family is at a truck stop saloon after the funeral. There are some stories in this collection in which I dip a toe into horror or the Gothic, and I’m definitely going to explore ways to lean into these in the future. In fact, the title Tales from Manila Ave. echoes the title of Nick Joaquin’s Tales of the Tropical Gothic, which is no accident.
PW: Some of your stories sit at the edge of childhood. How do you see childhood as a lens for reckoning with larger forces of war, dictatorship, and displacement?
PJC: I think a lot about a quote from James Baldwin, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” This has been on my mind for the past few years because of the war and genocide in Palestine, as well as the immigration raids here in the US. Whether it’s a family’s displacement from the land, or their displacement from each other, children are a witness through all of it, and so are we. Baldwin adds, “What we see in the children is what they have seen in us—or, more accurately perhaps, what they see in us.”
When I wrote these stories, I tried to center children as witnesses in some way: as communal narrators memorializing a storyteller, as sisters adjusting to an American suburb, as children trying to prevent their parents’ divorce. But even when stories take a more adult perspective, the children are always in sight, such as the widowed mother looking at her sons in the final scene of “A Balikbayan Affair,” or the first-generation Filipino American protagonists of the last two stories who are now ushering in the next generation. I think it’s important, as a worldview, to consider what it means to be a child living in an empire, where the political is always personal. Of course, Star Wars comes to mind, Avatar: The Last Airbender, too. But Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird was certainly an influence in my writing, specifically as a child witnessing the changes around her, which are simultaneously political and personal.
I immigrated to the US when I was four years old. A lot of the logistics and paperwork happened behind closed doors where my parents carried the weight and anxiety of it all. I know that isn’t the same for every immigrant family. Some children need to translate for their parents, for example. But in these stories, I sought to fill in the gaps of the Filipino American immigrant story. I imagined the space between the world of children and the world of adults full of conflict, tension, and misunderstandings but also of love, hope, and connection. Children often don’t get a say in things. If they did, what would they tell us?
PW: Animals appear throughout the book. What does it mean for the nonhuman to accompany the immigrant story?
PJC: There are definitely a lot of cats in this book, prominently in “The House at the End of Maplewood Drive” and “Along Came a Stray.” In my family, we weren’t allowed to have pets growing up, except for the occasional fish or small turtle in a small tank. We had guinea pigs once, but didn’t bring them along when we moved from California to New Jersey. Only recently, just this past July, did I get my own cat, Clark Kafka “Cafecito” Kent. So, part of working cats into my stories is admittedly wish fulfillment. Usually, in that mythical notion of the American Dream, there’s a dog accompanying the mom, dad, son, and daughter. Dogs are “man’s best friend.” On the other hand, cats get a bad rep, tied up with witches and bad luck superstitions. But cats are so full of personality and also so full of care: the way a mama cat will pick up one kitten after the other to bring them to a safe place, the way she bathes them and gives them attention. The idea of bonded pairs and belonging to a litter—there’s a lot of familial connotations, like the struggle of staying together as a family. We can learn a lot from cats. Just ask T. S. Eliot and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
PW: In “Everything Must Stay” objects refuse to be discarded, even as they choke the living space. How do we measure the value of a life, or the significance/impact of a migration, with the things we keep?
PJC: The store in “Everything Must Stay” is a sari-sari, which means “miscellaneous” or “variety.” I think that meaning captures the immigrant experience in many ways. Immigrants carry a lot of baggage, literal and metaphorical. Sometimes space is limited, so what we choose to take with us must hold some kind of significance in comparison to other things. One example is the Santo Niño statue that Grace and her mother bring to their new apartment in “A State of Grace.” A toothbrush or laundry detergent—those simpler things can easily be found in a sari-sari store. At the same time, things can take on a new or second life. In the tradition of sending a balikbayan box to family in the Philippines, secondhand clothes or shelf-stable foods like canned Vienna sausages or chocolates become totems of our connection back to the motherland, back to the people we still hold dear despite the geographical distance. Objects are gifts, objects are resources. In “Everything Must Stay,” the sari-sari not only holds snacks and beauty products, but also holds the Filipino community together, and ultimately keeps the family at its center together.
PW: Childhood games—rice kites, Halloween nights, street songs—recur throughout the collection. What does it mean to return to play as a way of surviving displacement? How does childhood in general serve as a lens for exploring war?
PJC: I remember when I was just entering the first grade, when my family had just moved to New Jersey, I made friends with classmates by coming up with some really weird lore about our school. We gathered around someone’s desk, claiming that we had each seen a weird, glowing green light outside the school at night. As if we all went out of our homes, one by one, when everyone was asleep. We confirmed each other’s accounts, even drawing out a map of the school and labeling the tree where the green light was spotted. We probably could’ve passed a lie detector test; we were so convinced of ourselves. But of course, none of it was real (or was it?). I don’t know if anyone else from that class remembers, but that memory has stuck with me. As the new kid in the class, I felt welcomed by my classmates.
Play is unifying in that way—play as creative instead of competitive. Like I mentioned before, seeing the world through the eyes of children is ingrained in my approach to storytelling. Writing is play. We pretend as our characters and imagine what their lives must be like, and our task is to convince everyone else that they are true. The power of storytelling is that it centers on people, not statistics. It cuts through paperwork, bureaucracy, technicalities—that stuff of the adult world. Some might consider that escapism. At least for me, writing embraces the truth of our world. Or like how Kuya Jem does in “Tales from Manila Ave.,” it bends the truth towards magic.
PW: Several of the stories highlight women as laborers—nannies, nurses, domestic workers. Can you speak to the tension between Filipino women sustaining homes across two countries while rarely being recognized in either?
PJC: The Philippines has matriarchal roots. Despite the patriarchal structures introduced by colonization and imperialism, those roots still bloom. For example, there have been two women who’ve held office as president of the Philippines. Even through Catholicism, women seem to be the center of local religious life, leading community prayers and the rosary. They are also great storytellers in their own right; tsismis is indeed a craft. In this way, I think Filipino women might be most attuned to what it means to be Filipino. To sustain that across two countries is no easy task. It takes a lot of labor, in more ways than one. Many become Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the healthcare and hospitality industries, and others as domestic workers. Many are teachers, too, like my own mother, who is a special education teacher. In all these fields and professions, there’s a necessary and intuitive sense of care. Mia Alvar captures a lot of these sentiments in her stories from In the Country, and I am so very grateful for her kind words of support for my book. Like in her stories, I similarly sought to capture the tension between Filipino women’s professional and personal lives.
PW: How does Tales from Manila Ave. as a whole explore survival across borders and generations?
PJC: I don’t think I ever considered the theme of survival in my book. But surely it’s there. I recently came across the story “Target Island” by Mariah Rigg, and in an interview with The Common, she considers how “the short story is just like a really long obituary.” When talking about Rigg’s story with my fiction students, which is about a man’s long and harrowing life intertwined with the island of Kahoʻolawe, we noted how obituaries usually end with a list of living family members, the “survived by.” In some ways, I think it’s helpful to think of short stories as obituaries.
The dedication of Tales from Manila Ave. certainly presents this book as one: to my family and relatives “in this world and the next.” In 2023 I had lost my paternal grandmother, and in the following year, 2024, I lost my maternal grandmother. We grew up mostly away from them, but whenever my siblings and I visited them in the Philippines, they were always so happy and proud of us. The last time we had seen them in person was in 2019. Their passing was a bit of a realization that my connection to the motherland was fading. Grief is always built into the immigrant story in that way. The characters in my stories get to that realization, too. I can list all the ways my characters mourn and grieve, but I would practically be listing every one of them in my stories. They grieve their parents, spouses, and siblings. They grieve a life of what-could-have-been if they had never left the Philippines at all. They are the “survived by” who have to figure out how to live with what’s left of their loved ones: customs, traditions, faith, memories, secrets, recipes, and ultimately themselves.
Patrick Joseph Caoile was born in the Philippines and grew up in northern New Jersey. His work is featured in storySouth, Porter House Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, the anthology Growing Up Filipino 3, and elsewhere. He has received support from Roots.Wounds.Words and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. He holds a BA in English from Saint Peter’s University, MA in English from Seton Hall University, and PhD in English with a creative writing concentration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is a visiting assistant professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton College.
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.
There are many genres represented on my bookshelf, but I find that a few things are true across the board. I gravitate toward books that I relate to in some way and that address issues I care about. I primarily read fiction as I often find that it conveys its message in a more moving way than nonfiction. Below I have listed some of the fictional works that have resonated with me throughout the years.
Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons
I personally love a great feminist retelling. I am also a theatre kid at heart, so the works of Shakespeare are favorites of mine. I love Romeo and Juliet so much that I have a line from it tattooed on my arm. However, a fresh perspective on a story I love is right up my alley. This book centers on Rosaline, the girl Romeo left to pursue Juliet.
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
This book was wildly popular for a reason. It rekindled my love of reading for the first time in my adult life. When I was burned out by academic reading after finishing my undergraduate degree, a cheesy romance is what got me out of my reading slump. I’ve grown to love romances, and they make up a majority of what I read. My fiancé and I have even created a fun game that we play when we are walking through a store’s book section together. He reads blurbs on romance books and tries to pick out ones he thinks I will like. He’s gotten quite good at this game. Although he is not much of a reader himself, talking about my favorite romances has become a particularly sweet part of our own romance.
How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine
I believe we are intrigued by horror because it gives us the opportunity to work through our greatest fears without actually putting ourselves in physical danger. I would classify this book as a slasher. In my opinion, this is the scariest type of horror because it is the most likely to actually occur in real life. I have gifted my physical copy to a friend, but this is one of the best murder mysteries I’ve read. I love trying to figure out who the killer is, and this book kept me guessing until the page before the big reveal. I recommend it to people often.
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
This book fundamentally shaped me in my high school years. It centers on a young girl who is struggling with an eating disorder while grieving her best friend’s death. It was instrumental in giving me the motivation to start my own eating disorder recovery. While I would suggest being cautious of potential triggers due to the novel’s graphic nature, I would highly recommend it to anyone who either has dealt with or known someone with an eating disorder. My copy is currently in storage, but I thought it was worthy of being included on this list. I still think of it often.
Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
I return to this graphic novel series fairly often because it fills me with pure joy. I did not realize that I am bisexual until my early twenties, but it is so comforting to read about the kind of wholesome queer teenage experiences I didn’t have. In a way, it feels like connecting my current self with the younger version of myself who did not yet know she was queer.
Caylin Moore (she/her) is currently pursuing a graduate level certificate in book publishing from Pace University, and SAFTA is her first internship in the publishing industry. Her previous work includes copyediting, social media marketing, and project management. She hopes to use these skills and those gained during this internship for a job in either editorial or marketing one day. As someone who has often felt seen by the stories she reads, she is passionate about bringing stories into the world that help others feel that same comfort. She is planning her wedding to Nathan, the love of her life, for next August. In addition to her fiancé, she also loves romance novels, murder mysteries, musical theatre, and her pets Stitch and Oreo. Stitch is a hound dog named after objectively the best Disney character of all time, and she will hear no debate on that matter.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, December 28th, 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!
Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in creative writing and studio art. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Creative Director and Assistant Editor at Sundress. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Word/Play: A Generative Poetry Workshop,” a workshop led by Aerik Francis on Wednesday, December 10th 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)
Wordplay is time traveling: it is an opportunity to explore the history of words and languages while also crafting new futures and directions for words and language. Wordplay can bring fun and pleasure back into the craft of writing. Words can also enact dramatic plays, exploring the nuances of language using sound and employing multiple meanings at once.
This generative writing poetry workshop is an invitation to play with words and engage critically with craft. We will begin with an opportunity to sandbox and play with language based on impulse and intuition. Then, after our warm up writing activity where we will gather a bank of words and sounds, we will spend the workshop discussing tools and poetry related to wordplay with a special focus on homonyms, homophones, and puns.
We’ll draw inspiration from work by authors like Christina Sharpe, Evelyn Berry, Franny Choi, Emily Pérez, and Haryette Mullen before experimenting on our own. By the end of the workshop, we’ll all hopefully have seedlings of poetic writing for future work and more craft tools to bring back into our own craft practices.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Aerik Francis via Venmo at @Aerik-Francis or via Paypal at aerfrancis@gmail.com.
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black Latinx poet born & based on the lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples currently known as Denver, Colorado, USA. Aerik wants us to come together and gum up the gears of the machinery of the empire toward all of our collective liberation. Their poetry chapbook MISEDUCATION (New Delta Review 2023) can be purchased online or in person, and their newest poetry chapbook BODYPOLITIC is forthcoming with Abode Press in 2026. Find more of their work on their website phaentompoet.com or via social media @phaentompoet.
What Do You Want From Me? (Apprentice House Press, 2025) by Jennifer Dupree is a poignant and heartwarming story that explores complex family dynamics, trauma, trust, forgiveness, and love. We follow Maeve and her story from childhood to motherhood, with chapters intertwining the past and present. Maeve is a strong, independent woman and doesn’t like to ask for help, even when she may need it. She is a beautifully layered character many of us can relate to.
The story begins on Halloween. Maeve’s mother, Effie, who has stroke-related dementia, has to stay with Maeve’s family because her father, Tom, has to take care of Anita, his mistress of thirty years who had fallen down the stairs that night. Maeve, who is forty-nine, tries to figure out why Anita was with Tom in the first place and how she fell down. In turn, she must confront the memories and trauma she buried for years. The truth is later revealed as the story seamlessly blurs Maeve as a child with Maeve as a mother.
The most prominent family dynamic Dupree explores in What Do You Want From Me? is that of mother and daughter. Maeve grew up having a slightly strained relationship with her mother. There was always a wall between them and Maeve felt like she couldn’t confide in Effie completely. That was why Maeve idolized Anita. When she was a kid, Maeve often went to Anita’s home to hang out; Anita was this perfect, understanding, warm mother figure Maeve always wanted. She even admits that she “loved Anita more than [she] loved [her] own mother” (Dupree 60). However, that precious friendship and the mother-daughter bond Maeve wanted shattered when she found out about the affair and realized Anita was not who she thought she was.
The relationships with these two mother figures shaped Maeve’s own relationship with her teenage daughter Paige and how she wants to be a good, understanding mother.
Maeve and Paige have a tense relationship that parallels Maeve and Effie’s in many ways; Maeve constantly worries if she is a terrible mother. While she tries her best to be someone Paige can lean on and trust, it becomes increasingly difficult to give Paige the attention she deserves with the many responsibilities that keep piling on top of each other. Maeve “feels the tug of all the people she’s supposed to be—mother, daughter, wife, employee, human being and citizen of the world” (Dupree 128). She tries to balance all of these roles in her life and do them well. She doesn’t allow herself to just sit down and cry because she feels the stress to be the best mother or daughter. The pressure Maeve puts on herself is something that we readers can relate to, even if we are not mothers. Many of us all play different parts in our own lives, do them well, and we criticize ourselves if we don’t. How do we know which part of ourselves to be first?
The couple dynamic, whether that is between a married couple or a cheating one, is the trigger in the story as these are the relationships that destroyed the family. Not only did Tom and Anita have an affair that turned Maeve’s world upside down, but she also grew up witnessing the toxic relationship between Tom and Effie. As a kid and teenager, Maeve watched them fight all the time and that’s why Maeve’s current relationship with her father is the tautest. Maeve doesn’t trust Tom at all and questions if he was the one who pushed Anita down the stairs.
Because Maeve’s memories of Tom are so full of anger, however, even she may not have realized how those emotions obscure her from the real childhood memories. This anger she feels is so immense that it makes up a large part of herself as a person.
Of course, this is where Maeve is supposed to apologize. She’s been in therapy long enough to recognize an opportunity when she sees one. She looks at her father and the words are right there, rolling around on her tongue, but she thinks of her father and Anita Haverland backlit by the firelight that day twenty-five years ago and she remembers that at least some of her anger is justified. Unless that, too, is a faulty memory.
“What would it feel like to forgive him? Wendy-in-her-head asks.
I don’t know who I’d be, Maeve says.” (Dupree 258-259)
As Maeve starts to doubt herself and her memory, it becomes clear that she can be an unreliable narrator due to the stress and mixed emotions piling up inside of her. Her feelings cloud her vision and she ends up “remembering” something that never happened. There is so much trauma, anger, and guilt Maeve experienced that she keeps questioning over and over about what happened on Halloween night and if she can trust herself to come to the right conclusions.
Maeve’s healing begins as she learns how to ask for help. When she unpacks her childhood trauma and admits feelings she buried for years, it feels like a fresh start for her. Despite having a lot to navigate through, she is able to rebuild her life and the relationships in her family because of her ability to dig deeper into how everything unraveled. She not only learns to forgive those around her, but more importantly herself, which is the biggest challenge of all. After all, we are our own worst critics.
The question “what do you want from me” is a loaded one. It’s one that people ask Maeve throughout the novel and one she asks herself constantly. What does she want from those around her? What do people want from her? What does she want from herself? But to move on, Maeve untangles her childhood, coming to conclusions she didn’t ever want to admit. Everyone makes mistakes and it’s important to realize that sometimes to heal, you must forgive. Everyone is just living their lives for the first time.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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!
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 CrabOrchardReview, among others.
This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.
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 (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.
