FOREVERHAUS

FOREVERHAUS, Kailey Tedesco’s timely examination of domesticity made macabre, conjures the architecture of a dwelling whose vestibules ail, its floorboards imbued with an intimacy matched by such exquisite details as “jadeite bowls” and “a suit of tooth-plaque.” Tedesco grants as much reign to Bloody Mary as she does to language steeped in beadwork of the afterlife. I marveled at ghostlore, cakerot, and “peppermint christ,” while connecting with a narrator who wants “so badly to look like i come from a place / of costumes.” Reading FOREVERHAUS is like attending a Halloween party thrown by Anne Sexton and grimoire’s best clairvoyant. A beautiful eeriness promenades the collection—from Bela Lugosi to Theda Bara, these poems are nostalgically embroidered. There’s even room for Zelda Rubinstein on the guestlist. “Gothic in stature,” Tedesco’s aesthetic makes a home.  — Jon Riccio

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Kailey Tedesco’s FOREVERHAUS transforms the body into house, each poem/spell a baroque door between our very human world and the otherworldly haunts of personal memory, familial understanding, and the faith and lore in all that lies between. Tedesco writes, “Once I was inside the / dark, I could experience everything fully”: FOREVERHAUS is a lyric, compassionate haunting that, with every sharp line, will spellbind you toward the glitter and wonderment found in horror. — Carly Joy Miller, author of Ceremonial