NMLCT: Poems

by Paul Vermeersch

Imagine The Matrix retold by the reanimated cyborg bodies of the Brothers Grimm.


Fables and fairytales collide with virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and monstrous myths in a world where no one knows what to believe. In his eighth book of poems, Paul Vermeersch responds to the increasing difficulty of knowing what is real and what isn’t, what is our genuine experience and what is constructed for us by The Algorithm. In a “post-truth” society rife with simulations, misinformation, and computer-generated hallucinations, these poems explore the relationship between the synthetic and the authentic as they raise hope for the possibility of escape from MCHNCT (Machine City) to NMLCT (Animal City), where the promise of “real life” still exists.


These poems — all precisely 16 lines long, identically formed as though mass-produced — are themselves artificial creations, products of the imagination, sometimes disorienting but always vivid. They hold up a mirror not only to nature, but also to its unnatural distortions and facsimiles. In NMLCT, Vermeersch gives us his answer to an existence in thrall to the artificial. But it also foretells a different future, one where the air and the grass and the trees, and all the life they engender, might always be genuine and sensed and safe.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2025

About the author

Paul Vermeersch is a poet, multimedia artist, professor, and editor. His eighth collection of poetry, NMLCT, was published in September 2025 by ECW Press. Paul holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal. He is currently a professor at Sheridan College where he serves as the editor-in-chief of The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing. He is also the senior editor of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers where he created the poetry and fiction imprint Buckrider Books. He lives in Toronto. Instagram: @paulvermeersch

Reviews

[Luigi Sposato · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his best work to date, Paul Vermeersch takes the reader through an unwavering and dedicated journey. The commitment to quatrains and uniformity amongst all poems is bold and his uniqueness and creativity are amplified by the individuality each poem possesses despite this.

The subject matter of the poems are vivid and fun, with equal amounts of self-imposed thought and questioning of how things work and why things are the way they are.

Another wonderful read.

[Kevin Kindred · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have trouble commenting on poetry, especially contemporary poetry, because I always find my impressions seem unstudied and aesthetic. I like what I like and I struggle to explain why. Vermeersch’s poetry is thoughtful and imagines subject matter that in the hands of another writer might be rendered dark or depressing. But Vermeersch infuses it instead with joy and wonder. It is a delight to read.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"One way they make you a monster is by making all your clothes too small"

This is an incredible book. The concepts alone are so captivating. Paired with Paul's unique writing, they leap off the page.

[Ian Dariusz Maliszewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”

― Richard Adams, Watership Down

[Ben Berman Ghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to put the book down several times just to say “god damn it that’s good”.

NMLCT, or, Animal City, is an example of the author at the absolute top of their game.

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Paul Vermeersch’s poetry collection NMLCT I closed my eyes. An image kept repeating itself. I am driving on an empty highway toward an abandoned city and on a billboard above the highway flashes an important message that I miss because I’m driving too fast. When I turn the car around to read the message again, the sign is gone and what I was supposed to do in this abandoned city, what I needed to know to fix the world, I no longer know. So, I read the book again.

The opening section MCHNCT (Machine City) is both apocalyptic in its imagined white space of buildings protruding from the ground; of wolves wandering aimlessly, but also preying and then dying, starving; of artificial intelligence; of oceans we’ve forgotten; of animals that appear as a matter of remembering, and of “eye contact, no longer analog.” I left MCHNCT feeling that I could have done more while I was there, instead, I saw and felt, outside looking in, just as people witness the devastating effects of capitalism and artificial intelligence, but do nothing, speak nothing.

In the NMLCT (Animal City) section, the wolves like winter, appear and disappear and while we know they’re there, they will return, they don’t feel real. We can only imagine, but the “knowledge of imaginary things is not itself imaginary.” In this section of the collection, I am more central, the reader, the body, the animals, I am a part of this “heavy, ancient” green, forest. But I am also living in a midway found by future generations, an indecipherable binary code of some strange existence. Who are we?

Vermeersch interrogates the artifice of life, of our very existence, how life (existence) is both a concrete thing that is right in front of us, all around, under us, and yet is also entirely a made-up thing. We are both animal and machine, but also, kind of neither, kind of in-between, in that mirrored box, a reflection of ourselves in the forest. I enjoyed wandering through this poetry collection because it reminded me to slow down and think about what is real, and therefore what I need to save myself from the world, and what the world needs to save it from itself.

[James Hawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book having read Vermeersh’s Don’t Let It End Like This Tell Them I Said Something, which I liked a lot. This new book blew me away. A perfect book for our time. A beautiful contrast and melding of technology and the natural worlds and how we humans are lost somewhere in between. But it’s not bleak, and I can’t even explain why. It’s a book I know I will revisit and I am looking forward to it. Highly recommend.

[Jessi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walking home. Eating a peach. Talking about the war. Sleeping poorly. The present is always doing something, arriving, departing. But the past, totally emptied of any doing, is just the things, the leftovers lying where we left them. The present works hard to bury the things of the past. This is an ongoing process, so the burial is never

complete.

[Margaryta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Going to write up more formal thoughts on this book for periodicities, but briefly, NMLCT is one of the most exciting books of poetry I have read since the pandemic. I was immersed and drawn into the world Vermeersch built, in love with the commentary and the wit.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting poems!
Full review soon!
Thank you to the publisher for my copy!

[Jacob McArthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavy metal content, to a smooth jazz beat.

[Camila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow that was weird! I like it.

[Justin Timbol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Play is alive and well in NMLCT. Eels. What an incredible poem.