To Flash and Flutter, by Charles K. Carter

Poetry, chapbook, 48 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Charles K. Carter continues their poetic forays into trauma, grief, and vulnerability. In their latest chapbook, To Flash & Flutter, readers journey into a single long-form poem, whose speaker seeks out healing and discovery as part of an ayahuasca ritual.

Violent visuals, trippy geometric shapes, and intense personal flashbacks are intermixed with revealing encounters with a celestial hummingbird, an intimate conversation with Marilyn Monroe, and a visit with a wise whale. Like a real psychedelic trip, fast-moving scenes and images can leave one feeling a bit scattered, but there is more-than-enough meaning and revelation to be found underneath the chaotic surface of this journey inward.

Charles K. Carter is a queer, disabled poet who lives in Oregon. They are the author of four poetry collections, including Follow This Blood to Find a Dead Thing (Fernwood Press), The God of Loneliness (Rebel Satori Press), and If the World Were a Quilt (Kelsay Books). They have also penned several chapbooks including Artificial Sweetness (Finishing Line Press) and No More Half-Love (Ethel). Carter can be found on Instagram @CKCpoetry.