Letter from the Editor

by Oscar Villalon

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The following letter appears in the newest issue of ZYZZYVA. It’s the first issue of the journal that bears Oscar Villalon as editor on the masthead. The issue is available in bookstores and can also be ordered here. And you can subscribe here. Dear Reader, This is the 125th issue of ZYZZYVA. It’s a remarkable milestone when you consider all of the things that have to go right for a literary journal, one absent the shoring of a munificent college or regal institution, to make it that far. Firstly, there has to have been a steady and passionate readership. Our […]

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5 Questions for Christopher’s Books

by ZYZZYVA

Posted on by ZYZZYVA

Every neighborhood deserves at least one good bookstore. For Potrero Hill, a desirable residential area with commanding views of nearby downtown San Francisco, that store is Christopher’s Books. The small street corner shop has been in business since 1991. Jackson Tejeda is its assistant manager. ZYZZYVA: What’s the coziest spot in your store for reading? JACKSON TEJEDA: My favorite spot is in this comfy old wooden chair that we set outside the door on sunny days. Customers sometimes buy books and then sit in the chair in the sun and start reading. This is particularly enjoyable for me as a bookseller when they’ve just […]

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Radical hope: ‘Not Too Late,’ edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The sun has not yet set on climate activism and our potential for a bright future. So say Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, the editors of a new collection of essays and interviews, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story From Despair to Possibility (200 pages; Haymarket Books). Not Too Late features the voices of advocates who have been through the mill in the fight against climate change; they show us that giving up is not an option. They have become thick-skinned and resilient, and their writing offers a guide for us to turn to when we need revitalization. […]

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5 Questions for Politics and Prose

by ZYZZYVA

Posted on by ZYZZYVA

Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C.’s, premier independent bookstore, has been in business since the Reagan Administration—to be precise, the fittingly novelistic year of 1984. Since that time, the store has grown from two employees (the original owners, Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade) to a staff of more than 100 in three locations. Among the store’s many patrons are two local authors: Barack and Michelle Obama. We talked to Wendy Wasserman, the store’s director of marketing and communications. ZYZZYVA: What’s the coziest spot in your store for reading? WENDY WASSERMAN: Cozy can mean so much. For the little ones, we have […]

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Q&A with Eileen Myles: Unwrapping time

by Valerie Braylovskiy

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Poetry can encompass many shapes and qualities, including the singular capacity to open new pathways of understanding ourselves. A poet who achieves this feat is unafraid to take risks and question the quotidian. Eileen Myles has consistently been one of those poets. Myles’ newest poetry collection, a “Working Life” (Grove Atlantic Press, 267 pages), is perhaps their deepest and most personal exploration of what it means to be human. Myles says that “maybe time is the real subject of language,” and uses temporality to explore personal and public moments within a broader sociopolitical landscape. Born in Boston and now living […]

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Bearing Witness: ‘Bone Country,’ by Linda Nemec Foster

by Gus Berg

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In Bone Country (110 pages; Cornerstone Press), the thirteenth poetry collection by Linda Nemec Foster, each poem is a snapshot, presented in a fragmented style that emphasizes the intensity of each image. Despite this fragmentation, the collection is united by a quick rhythm that propels the reader. Every piece is imbued with an intense sense of place in Europe. Warsaw, Krakow, Bratislava, the Tatra Mountains, Now Sac, Rzeszow, Tarnow, and the Baltic Sea all make early appearances. Poland is the central focus, from the beauty of natural landscapes to the horrors of war and occupation. The collection explores the tension […]

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5 Questions for Vroman’s

by ZYZZYVA

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In 1894, the first-ever commercial motion picture house—a Kinetoscope parlor—opened its doors in New York City. That same year, in the region that would become the movie capital of the world, Adam Clark Vroman opened a bookstore in Pasadena, California. That business, now with two locations in Los Angeles County, remains open to this day—Vroman’s is the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Southern California. Guy Lopez is one of the store’s booksellers. ZYZZYVA: What’s the coziest spot in your store for reading? GUY LOPEZ: The whole store is cozy, but the coziest spot that comes to mind is a lovely […]

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Keeping It Light: ‘Always Alwaysland: New Poems’ by Stanley Moss

by Megan Luebberman

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Having written several volumes over half a century, the critically acclaimed American poet Stanley Moss continues to offer galvanizing ideas, images, and feelings in his work. His latest, Always Alwaysland (239 pages; Seven Stories Press), contains more than 100 poems covering a wide range of personal, philosophical, and political topics. Using fanciful free verse and occasional rhyme schemes, Moss takes readers through his vivid memories and endless imagination.             While Always Alwaysland has no unifying theme, there are recurring ideas, such as the concept of language, reading, and poetry itself. Moss continually comments about the nature of the poet and […]

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Broken Home: ‘Archipelago,’ by Laila Malik

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

            From the first piece in her debut poetry collection, Archipelago (86 pages; Book*hug Press), Laila Malik ponders the complexity and impermanence of home, a concept that sometimes stretches across continents. The metaphorical loss of place through multigenerational migration and the literal loss of land through climate change are connected in each of the collection’s four sections (“precambrian”; “petroleum by-products”; “half-life of exile”; and “kufic”).             Many of the pieces in Archipelago are written in the second person, interspersed with the expanded first-person perspective “we,” transforming a collection of personal reflections into a subtle set of instructions. Malik’s poems carry […]

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5 Questions for Elliott Bay Book Company

by ZYZZYVA

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Elliott Bay Book Company opened as a small shop in Seattle’s Pioneer Square in 1973. A half-century later, Elliott Bay, now in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, is the city’s largest independent bookstore, housing more than 150,000 titles. Tracy Taylor is Elliott Bay’s co-owner (along with Joey Burgess and Murf Hall). ZYZZYVA: What’s the coziest spot in your store for reading? TRACY TAYLOR: Inside the castle in the kids’ section. It’s hidden and carpeted and when the store is quiet, it’s bliss. Z: What’s a little-known fact about your store? TT: Most of the windows at the bookstore were broken during […]

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World-Building: ‘The Nature Book,’ by Tom Comitta

by Zoe Binder

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In Tom Comitta’s new work of fiction, The Nature Book (272 pages; Coffee House Press), we never encounter a human being. Taking the form of a literary “supercut” that pieces together words from over 300 novels, Comitta’s collage redirects our attention to the life force that pulses through land, water, time, and outer space. Comitta (they/them) uses ornate prose to describe how time moves across seasons to paint a fresh picture of the world and how all nonhuman life fits into it. A standard fast-paced plot is replaced with a gentle rise and fall in action that decentralizes any characters—wolves, […]

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