Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts charts a course into magical waters, anchoring itself in the frightening politicization of a woman’s body. The chemistry of this conversation between Spokane poet Maya Jewell Zeller and Seattle artist Carrie DeBacker includes pomegranates for human heads, bones that can walk, and a ship sprung from a person’s back, “floating farther from shore.” The speaker in these incantations, behind these urgent watercolors, muses on the philosophies of geologic time, climate change, human genomes, and existential destruction. This book sets out to discover meaning in this terrible, beautiful time — and suggests wonder is where we’ll find it: “the diagnosis is strong / for the wild & wind mills.”
We are proud to present this troubling work of ecofeminism in gorgeous full color. It may well be the most colorful poetry book you buy all year, but don’t be fooled— it’s an intense work of anxiety in an age of political and environmental upheaval.
As per all of our books, it comes with an easy-to-download audio file. In this case Maya Zeller reads all the wild and feral poems in the book!
Audio
A downloadable file of this audio can be found on our audio page.
Film
Here's a video by Rebecca Starkey, our first film award! AMAZING!
