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Isobel and Emile is the story of two young lovers who separate and then try to survive on their own. The novel opens on the morning after their final consummation. Emile boards a train bound for his home in the city. Isobel stays in the town where they conducted their brief affair. For each one, the pain of separation becomes an existential crisis.

Kyle Buckley's first book, The Laundromat Essay, is a postmodern mix of poetics, absurd parable and essay.

The narrator lives across the street from a Laundromat. The owner of the Laundromat prevents him from entering, because he is looking for his son, Hoopy. The narrator is continuously fractured as he tries to remember the Laundromat and everything else, accurately.

Reading Margaret Christakos's poetry on the page is like reading sheet music. You don't get the full effect until you hear it. And when you do hear it, when you read it aloud to yourself, you realize that the music is wildly experimental and takes some participation. Christakos, in What Stirs, challenges you to meet her halfway. There's nothing passive about these poems.