Plumberries Press

32 pgs./$5.00

In Chelsea Tadeyeske’s”Heeldragger,” a pocketful of space-conscious (cautious) punch-packing poetry spliced among collage-carved graphics (stocking’d legs, heels, domestic furnishings, women’s bodies with blank faces that mimic mannequins), the opening canto blots the page like a staircase to a detached basement; a step or two might be sundered or skipped, the descent’s danger dealt sensibly discrete.

“who leaves

laurel-wreathed,

sweat and sparkle

heels in parade

will stump and shove to see

the rising of balloons

the holy animal stroked to transparency”

The second poem is two words footnoting the page’s bottom left corner. The first word is “i,” the other is “possum,” so the reader can delight at the outset in the absurdist shmaltz and schist to follow. Continue reading →