Everything’s Changing

A review of Chelsea Stickle’s new chapbook from Thirty West Publishing

When lockdown began Stephanie Michele and I exchanged an old suitcase. She filled it with books; I filled it with fruit on her birthday. We dropped it on the doorsteps of houses above our basement apartments and waved from our cars. A novel lifeline, the suitcase was a tether to each other in the dark unknowns of early-Covid.

In the suitcase she sent The Collected Stories of Leonora Carrington, which I devoured and bookmarked with dozens of slim post-it strips (I think I was afraid even post-its would run out in supply-chain demands). I still have yet to return the slim volume, the only collection of the surrealist’s short stories that often keeps me awake at night in the good way — the awe way.

I read Chelsea Stickle’s Everything’s Changing in the bathtub. The pink light glittered against the white tile walls. I thought about the two NYU kids blocking the poetry section at the Strand looking for books for some class about 19th century men (of course) and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Can I borrow your copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin?” one asked, “Sure,” the other replied, “This isn’t the right section,” he continued, looking at their booklist, “Can I write in it?” There was a pause.

“Yeah, sure. Actually. I mean. I’d prefer if you used post-its.”

In a moment they passed and the shelf of A–B poets which lacked what I was seeking. I thought about New York as a city of…