Little Houses

"a part of you wants to stay wedged / in the throat of what will kill you." Athena Nassar's piercing debut full-length collection, Little Houses, unravels one American family's conflicted Southern existence. Nassar's speaker first surfaces from an alligator's mouth to beckon readers through a series of revolving doors. Behind one door, she reckons with a complex history of colonization; behind another, Princess Peach mourns her own hard-coded impotence. In this way, Nassar does not shy from exploring all sides of her speaker's sexuality, heritage, and familial connections. To occupy her Little Houses is to find freedom in contradiction.