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Come celebrate a new poetry collection from award-winning author Michael Chang.
A vital breath of life arrives in American poetry with Synthetic Jungle, the latest collection from acclaimed poet Michael Chang. With poems in a register both hilarious and scathing, Synthetic Jungle effortlessly bashes convention while simultaneously rebuilding the language we use to communicate our fears and joys.
Synthetic Jungle is a collection written by a brilliant jester who winks at you as you catch their every reference before sharing a laugh at your own self-satisfaction. Themes of identity, sexuality, and literacy play out in a dizzying rhythm of microtheaters. Readers will find themselves giggling, snorting, and guffawing their way through this work: whether at a repudiation of the literary landscape or a critique of a failing justice system, to laugh along with Chang is to recognize your mistakes and, ultimately, grow from them.
Fractal and kinetic in the quick-witted spirit of John Ashbery and Emily Dickinson, Chang’s tender poems dance around, between, and through the personal and philosophical. Synthetic Jungle is as sweet as it is grand, and beneath its sarcastic grin reverberates an immense, open heart.
Michael Chang (they/them) is the author of several collections of poetry, including Boyfriend Perspective and Almanac of Useless Talents. Their poems have been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. They were awarded the Poetry Project’s prestigious Brannan Prize in 2021. Tapped to edit Lambda Literary’s Emerge anthology, they serve as a poetry editor at the acclaimed journal Fence.
Ashna Ali is a Best-of-the-Net nominated queer and disabled diasporic Bangladeshi poet, writer, and editor raised in Italy and based in Brooklyn. They are the author of the chapbook The Relativity of Living Well (The Operating System, 2022) and hold a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Their work has been featured or is forthcoming from Brooklyn Poets' Poet of the Week series, Split This Rock's Poem of the Week Series, Nat. Brut., Sun Dog Lit, Sick Magazine, and beyond. Follow their work at @doctordushtu on Instagram and painbaby.substack.com.
Em DeVincentis (he/they) is a trans poet and writer currently based in Brooklyn, NY and is from Salt Lake City, Utah. Em was shortlisted for the 2023 Penrose Poetry Prize, and their work has been featured in Death Rattle Literary, The Canticle, pan pan press, Eleven & A Half, and Osseous Matter. Much of his work is interested in intersections of transness and the medical system, the environment, and familial relationships.
Bex Frankeberger is a writer and musician based in Brooklyn. They hold an MFA from Pratt Institute, and you can/should buy their chapbooks at Books Are Magic. Raised somewhere between the Mojave Desert and Pacific Ocean, they abstain from almonds in solidarity with the drought.
Max Kruger-Dull’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Litro Magazine, Roanoke Review, Quarterly West, The MacGuffin, Hunger Mountain Review, and others. He lives in New York with his boyfriend and two dogs. For more, please visit maxkrugerdull.com.
Sarah Lyn Rogers has edited several books for Soft Skull Press and is series co-editor for the anthology Best Debut Short Stories: The PEN America Dau Prize. She is the author of the chapbooks Inevitable What (Sad Spell Press, 2016) and Autocorrect Suggests “Tithe” (Ghost City Press, 2021), and the Catapult column Internet as Intimacy, with poems published at HAD, Dream Pop, Witch Craft Mag, and elsewhere. For more of Sarah's writing, and to work with her, visit sarahlynrogers.com.
Angbeen Saleem is an artist, poet, aspiring farmer and filmmaker. She hails from the jawn that made jawn happen, played Othello once in a high school English class, and is a Pink Door Fellow. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Blood Orange Review, Pigeon Pages, The Margins, The Slowdown, underblong, and in other timelines of the multiverse. An installation of her poem “black and brown people on shark tank” is on display at Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia. Follow her on Instagram (@angribeen) and Twitter (@angbe3n).
Jason Zuzga's nonfiction book, Uncanny World, about the strangeness of nature documentary, is forthcoming from Punctum Books. His debut book of poetry, Heat Wake, was published by Saturnalia Books. His poetry and nonfiction have been published in numerous journals, such as Tin House, the Yale Review, and the Paris Review. He is Editorial Co-Director of Fence.