Fort Not

“Although her language sometimes suggests she is from another planet, Emily Skillings knows how history happens on ours ... [a] staggeringly beautiful, wildly off-kilter account of daily life.” ―John Ashbery

In her highly anticipated debut collection, Fort Not, Emily Skillings creates an “atmosphere for encounter,” akin to searching for meaning through lip-reading. We soon realize that these poems are speaking to us in tones that appear elegantly improvisational. And while the poems may “shout from the periphery,” it is not without reason, but because of their desire to direct the reader to a created space―a world that allows for “curved logic,” “that dirty, off-gold color,” “middle-class nausea” and “metallic power” to coexist. The mysteries here embrace a natural, physical music, pulling us into a moving current of painted images, poetic histories and draped bodies evaporating to reveal others behind them, as quickly as they appear.
Emily Skillings is the author of two chapbooks: Backchannel (Poor Claudia) and Linnaeus: The 26 Sexual Practices of Plants (No, Dear/Small Anchor Press). She lives in Brooklyn, where she is a member of the Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist poetry collective, small press and event series.