Meg Pokrass’ third book for Bamboo Dart Press is out today and available at better independent bookstores, lesser big boxes and direct from us. Her unique voice and groundbreaking work in helping to define Flash Fiction has been seen and published in New England Review, Five Points, McSweeney’s, Passages North among others and have been included in more than 800 literary journals and anthologies.
Old Girls and Palm Trees is an illustrated collection about iconoclasts, perpetual dreamers, tightrope walkers, living room magicians, cat lovers, and female friendship. The “old girls” in these linked hybrid pieces are women of a certain age who, in an alternate reality, refuse to accept the stereotypes of aging. The collection is conjured from dreamscapes of what just may be true. The poems, prose poems and micros in this collection invite us into an alternate reality where joy and love for same sex friends become a magical force to be reckoned with.
The illustrations in the book by Cooper Renner underline the physical nature of this collection. This is Meg’s third work with Bamboo Dart Press, and through this triptych of books, one gets a glimpse at how vast and economical one of our best flash fiction writers is. Below is a short piece from the book featuring some of Renner’s illustrations.