World in Which

Allusive, mystical, and deeply felt, J.L. Conrad's A World in Which calls to mind Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus. Her lyricism is impeccable, her imagination radical. Open houses, carpool lines, married life, pet care, and election days barely conceal the dystopian of scarab infestations, environmental illness, mass surveillance, biblical floods, and meteor showers. Granted communion with their beloved dead, the living persevere despite the "approaching hoofbeats" of the Apocalypse. As these visionary poems avow, "It falls to us to shovel dirt over the flames."

-Carolyn Hembree, For Today