Hannah Lamb-Vines 12 posts
Hannah Lamb-Vines is a poet, critic, fiction writer, and editor in Berkeley, California. She received her MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts in 2021. Her poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from Columbia Journal, HAD, Black Telephone Magazine, Shit Wonder, and Bennington Review, among others. She is an interviews editor for Full Stop magazine.

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How To Play Yourself: On Jen Silverman’s Debut Novel

In a red-lit room with tile walls, a woman in a tank top and a face mask operates a video camera.

The first time I read We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman – all in one day after a gloomy, rainy week of reading Russian literature for no real reason – I cried so hard I gave myself a migraine. “I’m sorry,” said a friend when I told them this. “No,” I had to correct them, “that’s a good thing.”

The book wasn’t what I expected after many months of admiring it on my nightstand.… read more.

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Playfulness & Pretend Light the Dark in ‘Our Dark Academia’ Poems

Chess pieces, a white queen and a white knight, in front of a sunset

Adrienne Raphel’s new poetry collection, Our Dark Academia, deftly blurs the lines between performance, play, and identity. Seemingly autobiographical and written throughout the “Pandemic years” (2020-?), the poems in this collection are delicately and surprisingly interwoven.

Motifs like an upcoming birthday, a lost piece of jewelry (a family heirloom), and an addiction to online shopping spiral throughout the poems.… read more.

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Camille Dungy’s Urgent Ecopoetry from the Sixth Extinction

Camille T. Dungy was born in Denver but moved often. It is no surprise, then, that the poetry in her collection Trophic Cascade is filled with motion and displacement. Sometimes the displacement is due to travel and adventure, sometimes flight. Even what might seem stable or rooted, like an overflowing collection of Sports Illustrated magazines in the poem ‘Still life,’ is painted as precarious or fleeting.… read more.

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Make Them Feel the Feeling: Candice Wuehle’s ‘Monarch’

A white crown floats on a blue background

A creepy doll-face with pink lips and green eyes; the cover of MONARCH by Candice WuehleI could describe Candice Wuehle’s debut novel, Monarch, in a hundred different ways, each as enthusiastic as the last.

Jessica is a teenager in the “middle of the middle”—her father, Dr. Clink, is a professor at a Midwestern University; her mother, Grethe, sells Tupperware (sort of).

Jessica is like a lot of teenagers—she spends an absurd amount of time studying herself in a mirror.… read more.

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Sexy, Terrifying Film from Boy Harsher with a Killer Soundtrack

The Runner is a short experimental film. It’s worth watching if you’re into nebulous horror, gory makeup effects, MTV’s behind-the-scenes features, or the eighties as a general vibe. It’s also an album, with the added nomer (Original Soundtrack), by dark synth-pop duo Boy Harsher, comprised of vocalist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus “Gus” Muller.… read more.

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Beyond Humanity’s Solipsism: Nathalie Biancheri’s ‘Wolf’

'Wolf' movie poster in sea green. George McKay and Lilly Rose Depp stare into each other's eyesWriter/Director Nathalie Biancheri’s beautiful and compelling debut art film, Wolf, is the story of Jacob (George MacKay), a young man who sincerely believes he’s a wolf.

Set at an institution dedicated to reversing “species dysphoria” — an actual psychiatric syndrome, albeit a rare and under-researched one — Wolf challenges audiences to reflect on matters of identity and their impact on ecological relationality.… read more.

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