An Inquiry of Place
In the chapbook Diffusely Yours by Kate Garklavs (Bottlecap Press, 2018) each poem is a letter to a person or institution. These poem-letters are playful, absurd and full of private meaning.
The speaker diffuses bits of herself and her very visceral memories to a friend, lover or regular haunt, but it also clear she has absorbed parts of these people and places into herself as well.
The main assertion of collection “A Very Small Forest Fire” by Andrew Duncan Worthington (Bottlecap Press, 2018) seems to be that the ultimate way to undermine capitalism is to be too bored to participate.
“Assertion” may be too strong a word. These 12 short-short stories employ what I suspect is purposefully dull and vague language, creating characters numbed by the constant stimulation of modern American society. Narrators (often unnamed) drift through recreation activities but don’t have any fun—they don’t feel much of anything. The sparse language evokes Kerouac, but with a more limited vocabulary.
Debut poetry collection “the new gods” by Caseyrenée Lopez (Bottlecap Press, 2018) uses rich language to conduct an examination of the body: how bodies are placed within pop culture, how they are valued or derided in society, and how they are the vessels that lead us through love.