Mag Gabbert

Here, within these collected zines, you’ll find enough spotted ponies to fill at least three large stables to the brim. Although, of course, you wouldn’t have much luck coaxing them in there. No, instead, it’s likely because of the free rein they’ve been given, because they’ve been cut loose, that so many spotted ponies seem to have chosen these poems as their breeding ground. We’ve never offered them much scrutiny; never subjected them to any polishing or meticulous adjustments. Each of our spotted ponies simply exists in its natural state, as a product of our own wild abandon.

In SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS, Mag Gabbert redefines the bestiary in fiery, insistent, and resistant terms. These poems recast the traumas of her adolescence while charting new paths toward linguistic and bodily autonomy as an adult. Using dreamlike, shimmering imagery, she pieces together a fractured portrait of femininity--one that electrifies the confessional mode with its formal play and rich curiosity. Gabbert examines the origin of shame, the role of inheritance, and what counts as a myth, asking, "What's the opposite of a man? / A woman? A wound? The devil's image?"

"Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and felt your skin prickling at the base of your skull-felt like somewhere, inside the blackness above you, an unknown presence was hovering-a power? A fear?" This is a chapbook collection of poems inspired by the visual minimal poems of Aram Saroyan, with a bonus essay about how we perceive the physical and spiritual world around us.