Cotton Xenomorph\u2019s \u201cCryptids and Climate Change\u201d issue continues, with two poems from Adam Gianforcaro<\/a> microwaving blood in our literary <\/em>Nostromo.<\/p> What can community do for us? I know this blog spouts out \u201cfind the people who hold you\u201d and \u201clive happily in spite of the way the world is\u201d stuff all the time, but dudes\u2014we recorded The Line Break<\/em> with a guest this week and I just finished a book by a former guest before writing this, and I feel so lucky to be able to make friends with poets and write about these books each week for y\u2019all. What a mood I\u2019m in. I\u2019ve also had two cups of coffee, so. <\/p> Hey speaking of community and The Line Break<\/em>, started a Substack! We\u2019re about a year out from the release of his new book from Game Over Books, and until then, you can subscribe to to get updates!<\/p> What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p> Not gonna lie, I somehow wrote every other portion of this column before this graf. Honestly, I had a lot<\/em> to say about both these books and the links. So let\u2019s get straight to Children Of Chicago<\/em> by Cynthia Pelayo and Toska<\/em> by Alina Pleskova! Click here for Alina\u2019s appearance on <\/a>The Line Break<\/a><\/em>!<\/p> Toska<\/strong><\/em> by Alina Pleskova: <\/strong>yeah hell yeah this is what I want from a book of poems. There\u2019s vulnerability and coolness, there\u2019s sex and working class politics, each line is like watching a musician you\u2019ve never seen before take a song in places your ear didn\u2019t expect. I read it in three sittings and wrote at least one poem after each reading. <\/p> This isn\u2019t exactly the highest literary criticism, but I came away from this book thinking Alina and I are sentimental about the same things (\u201cbut I\u2019m into bittersweet reverbs: \/\/ how objects, like nicknames, \/ stick around long after their sources \/ how people don\u2019t vanish \/ when you stop loving them\u201d), anxious about the same things, (\u201c& all the wrong details creep in: \/\/ debt down to the cent, cherished faces \/ of those long or recently gone, \/\/ what my body withstood \/ felt again as a literal muscle memory\u201d), disgusted by the same things (\u201cAmong the many natural predators of poets, \/ mine include developers, executives, khaki-wearers, \/ talking appliances, & the people who respond\u201d), and wish the world could be different for the same reasons (\u201cA hand on my knee while curving around a coastal highway begs the question: what sort of sickos invented offices & economies?\u201d). Intellectual reading or not, what an exciting experience in a book. <\/p> Children Of Chicago<\/strong><\/em> by Cynthia Pelayo: <\/strong>look, we got a book about Humboldt Park written by a native Humboldt Parkian that is playing with fairy tales<\/a> and supernatural murder<\/a>\u2014I\u2019m going to be interested<\/em>. Scares and grotesqueries abound. We\u2019re relishing gore but still gonna protect the kids from it. Paragraph to paragraph, the story is incredibly kinetic. Characters move in and out of reality\/fantasy\/visions of horror in a way that is always surprising. Another book I can close my eyes and visualize as a movie and get excited about\u2014hey, we need more movies with half-decent care paid to Chicago\u2019s geography and an honest accounting of neighborhoods (two things The Bear<\/em> is emphatically uninterested in, fwiw). <\/p> That brings me to something a little tough about this book\u2014it sometimes felt like the research was copy\/pasted into the text of the narrative without going back over to smooth over the shift from \u201cwhat\u2019s happening, described with musical prose\u201d to \u201ca cool fact I learned.\u201d A father does not merely watch sports, he watches \u201cthe Bears, Bulls, Black Hawks [sic], Chicago Cubs, or White Sox on his large screen television.\u201d Chicago does simply have a history of killers, \u201cChicago had many known boogeymen: serial killer H.H. Holmes, who tortured and killed potentially hundreds in his murder castle, Richard Speck who murdered eight nursing students in a single night, the Ripper Crew, who kidnapped, ritualistically mutilated and killed over a dozen women, John Wayne Gacey [sic] who worked as a construction worker and a clown for children\u2019s birthday parties and went on to murder and store the bodies of thirty-three boys and men beneath his floorboards, and today\u2019s Chicago Strangler who has killed over fifty girls and women in the South Side of Chicago, and is still operating.\u201d There seemed to be a somewhat stilted attempt to cram as many Chicago facts and\/or examples into the narrative in a way that slowed down the prose. In fairness, I can totally relate. This city is<\/em> magic. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? Children of Chicago<\/em> is a love letter to Humboldt Park, a traditionally Puerto Rican neighborhood under 21st century threats of gentrification. My favorite Chicago punk band, Los Crudos, hails from Pilsen, a traditionally Mexican neighborhood under 21st century threats of gentrification. Here\u2019s Los Crudos live in North Carolina: <\/p>![\"Children](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/c4411f87-77ff-4df0-82f3-7aa358daf6b1.heic\")
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