Kailey Tedesco’s visually stunning debut collection shapeshifts. Whether musing over mermaids or lamenting death, its mythical & modern turns are riveting, meaning fascinating but also fastening. Her keen detailing, language, & pacing rivet poems that feel perennial like flowers or recurring nightmares. Shirley Jackson would approve--Tedesco throws us in dark water, walks us around dusty attics. Gaze into crystal while she draws tarot in her burlesque opium den. However, though magic carries these poems, they scrutinize suicide, puberty, misogyny & math(!). It’s not heavy handed but intimate as walking alongside a friend. Sojourn in this “sap-stained forest” but don’t expect to walk through unscathed.
Joey Gould, Poetry Editor
Image © Whitney Proper
She Used to Be on a Milk Carton by Kailey Tedesco w/illustrations by Whitney Proper
Published by April Gloaming Publishing
