By liz breslin (Dead Bird Books, 2025)
If this book is afraid, it doesn’t give a fuck and goes ahead anyway. Which is to say this poetry is a resourceful, DIY, lesbian builder that will deconstruct the ambient violence it encounters and create a shelter of banter, a huddle of tenderness, a tent for marchers with megaphones to gather under when it rains. This book reminds me of the very rare instances when reading a book of poetry resembles walking through an art installation. The settings, vignettes, reflections that liz breslin makes poetry out of reveals their observational wizardry. All the scraps of life—the maggots in the rug, ACC, Speight’s ads, “scissors everywhere,” the Pilates classes, the ongoing violence of empires—are food for this poetry. This book “is shining morning cliff edge salmon leaping high high country full moon full on full tilt full speed ahead.” This book cycles through the Aotearoa countryside queering its ruggedness and unsettling its colonial dream/hellscape. This book is “born to deviations gentle ferocious unexpected ways.” When I leave this book, its momentum whisks me into my daily steps ready to face those who think they have the power to silence us. This book is “back from the ledge” and unafraid to face the ledges ahead.
RUSHI VYAS
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