Fat Crayons

With Fat Crayons, Nettie Farris provides us with a voice that is both conversational and lyrical. Each poem is an inviting entry that captures what it means to be a thinking, loving, reader of the world. Occupation, distraction, and confusion are all forces that work against us. Yet Farris’ poems do not recoil. Instead they confront and define these forces as an effort to preserve the self. Farris finds the order in our lives, defining the “additional possibilities” that exist as we attempt to “arrange” or “rearrange” our lives. Be it a whimsical notion or an interior laceration of the heart, Fat Crayons reflects any soul who hopes to be one day better understood. --Matthew Haughton