Poetry. July Open Reading Selection. What happens when the imagined life and the stories we tell ourselves become terrifying, given our human ability to inhabit both mental and physical worlds? Bertram's third full- length collection pivots on an extended piece of creative nonfiction, "Forecast," which shows how obsessive thinking can begin in actual occurrences that are then exploded in the imagination. The science is personal, as the factual is tinted and stylized, filtered through a self grappling with the difficulty of knowing what is "real." "Lillian-Yvonne Bertram.lives, brilliantly, with whole heart, whole mind, and whole body, in the contradictions.She shows us.that Illusion is the Medium Which Allows Emptiness to Become Something Special, and I love this book beyond loving.

"--Sarah Vap.