Ultimate Sun Cell
by Haolun Xu
32 pages. 5.5″ x 7.” November, 2021. $10. NDR.
Cover art by Hana Chatani. Design by Ryan Quon.

The runner-up of our 10th Annual Chapbook Contest, selected by Brandon Shimoda, Haolun Xu’s Ultimate Sun Cell is an introspection on different myths involving cataclysm and collapse, building upon the aftermaths of failure. The figures of his work are continually surrounded, caught in their own snares. Whether it be Icarus or a broken cardboard box mistaken as a deer, Xu navigates subjects like the falling sky only after it has run its inevitable course. Jihyun Yun describes this chapbook as an “uncanny and introspective terrain Xu has built where the seam of the possible world is split just a little wider: where flowers can grow from a throat in one poem, and a sketch of a lavender seed can converse with its artist in the next. Even in its imaginative leaps, Ultimate Sun Cell does not avert its gaze from the anxiety of both seen and unseen dangers.” For a preview, check out this excerpt, which was published in our 11.2 issue. 

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