Oxidane by Nicole Matos

Giving voice to these invisible girls, Matos’ narrator tells a story of fierce, maternal love forging a familial bond, as beautiful and loyal as it is corrosive. This eulogy is an intimate, unapologetic conversation “like chess by mail” that sneaks up and stuns us. We are told, “You will need an axe for what is coming next.” Tenacious, neglected, tender, these girls redefine family and make us consider what we’re willing to do for the people we love.

—Liz Whiteacre, author of Hit the Ground

“Coming alive is terrible,” the speaker of Oxidane warns. She is terribly loyal, a tiny teen bodyguard driven by “compulsive solidarity” to protect her “empyrean and unnameable” friend. Packed with hard truths and witty observations of adolescent friendship, these narrative poems are heavy as a garden hose in winter and yet still “looped in sparking arcs” of language. You will want to know these girls, tame them, drink them back in.

—Sara Tracey, author of Some Kind of Shelter

Refracting through webs of fractured ice, Matos’ vignettes illuminate the shades of what it means to feel too much. Longing, cruelty, and transcendence intertwine as our narrator, her dark partner, and You, their Muse, drift just below the surface of failed institutions and absent authority, pushing against the thin but unbreakable skin that separates our need for release from our need to belong.

—Matt Mullins, author of Three Ways of the Saw

Oxidane has the reach of taut flash fiction fiction and the punch of expertly crafted poetry. It is a truly hybrid animal you’ll think about running from—but you’ll find yourself running towards it.

—J. Bradley, author of The Bones of Us

Nicole Matos is a Chicago-based writer, professor, roller derby girl, and proud special needs mom. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Classical, The Rumpus, theNewerYork, The Atticus Review, THE2NDHAND txt, berfrois, Chicago Literati, Aperion Review, neutrons protons, Vine Leaves, Requited, Burningword, Monkeybicycle, Oblong, and others.

She has written about higher education for Inside Higher Ed and Pedagogy Unbound, and about special needs parenting for Full Grown People, Brain Mother, and Monday Coffee. You can catch her blogging on Medium and publishing tappable stories on Tapestry, too.

She is Associate Professor of English at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL, and she competes as Nicomatose #D0A with The Chicago Outfit Roller Derby. Follow her on Twitter at @nicole_matos2.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 44 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-179-5

Oxidane by Nicole Matos Boo… by Geoffrey Gatza