The Nightgown and Other Poems, Taisia Kitaiskaia

There’s a slightly Madlibs-ish quality to these poems, in that various words are utterly incongruous, such that they almost seem like a joke. But (like good Madlibs!), they’re also pretty great. They are often playing with tropes from fairy tales, with a distinctly witchy twist.
All of this might make it sound like they’re primarily plot driven, or jokey, but that’s not quite right. This isn’t the kind of poetry where language becomes a beautiful edifice to be admired, it’s true, but still, the unexpected qualities of various words, and the meanings they evoke, are seriously considered; central to the enterprise. The poems are wonderfully crackly — they bump along and then suddenly, a cough, a shower of sparks, before you proceed onwards down the road, never entirely sure where you’ll end up.