Waveland

“ Evident everywhere in Ö sel Jessica Plante-Curl’ s poetry is her prodigious talent for casting the ordinary into the language of strange prophecy, making the knowable world feel impossibly weighted with mystery [. . .] I would follow this confident, oracular speaker anywhere— out into the ordinary world of birds shitting into iced tea on OkCupid dates, deep into a self she describes as “ sails of rain,” or sideways into a surreal landscape where “ tulips greet me / with the same empty cups I’ ve never been / able to drink from” and darkness is “ diced, cut into even slices.” - Emily Skaja