RAPPACCINI’S GARDEN: A COMPENDIUM OF POISONOUS POETRY

BY JULES JACOB & SONJA JOHANSON

Rappaccini’s Garden is a compendium of poisonous poetry with meticulously cultivated poems stemming from a variety of unique poisonous plants. As poets, horticulturalists, & Master Gardeners, Jules Jacob & Sonja Johanson share a deep reverence & knowledge of the toxic flora featured in these pages.  The poems in this collection are accompanied by vibrant illustrations, illuminating the juxtaposition of the danger & beauty of each pernicious specimen. Enter through the once grand gate that nature long ago claimed & step into Rappaccini’s Garden…                                  

MOTHERDEVIL

B Y KAILEY TEDESCO

On a darkmoon night, deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey a woman screams out piercing the eerie silence, “let this one be a devil!” Enter, Motherdevil by Kailey Tedesco, a spellbinding collection of poetry that reimagines the legend of the New Jersey Devil through the eyes of Mother Leeds. In these hauntingly visceral poems, Tedesco draws out the spirit of Mother Leeds & intimately infuses it with her own truths & experiences with mental health, post-partum depression, & the often-overlooked struggles of motherhood, making this an enduring collection of myth, magic, & powerful storytelling.                                                                                          

AWRY

B Y CHRIS MCCREARY

Emerging from a post-pandemic netherworld, the poems in awryflit like half-remembered dreams streaming through our liminal devices. Listing between rupture & reconfiguration, these verses spin the threads of a web stitching diverse registers & reference points. Tarot cards & twenty-sided dice chart a course for a disoriented, Orphean talk show host. Staggering forth from Orpheus' darkened soundstage, he searches for the perfect alchemical polymer of pop songs & corporate jargon to imbue midlife’s perilous journey with a synthesis of mythic significance.