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Playthings
36 pages, Paperback
Published February 13, 2026
About the author
Ilan Mochari
4 books8 followersIlan Mochari is the author of the poetry collection PLAYTHINGS and the novel ZINSKY THE OBSCURE. His short stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Salamander, Hobart, Juked, J Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, The Louisville Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes, as well as the Derringer Award for crime fiction, and he has been the recipient of a Literature Artist Fellowship grant from the Somerville Arts Council.
PLAYTHINGS is now available on Bookshop.org and Amazon!
https://bookshop.org/p/books/playthin...
https://www.amazon.com/Playthings-Ila...
ABOUT PLAYTHINGS
"Ilan Mochari’s voice in PLAYTHINGS is exquisite in its range, its responsiveness, its singing. These are poems to be savored and read many times. Whether he is writing about trees native to Mexico, spiders native to his bathroom, or memories native to boyhood, his engagement with the world delivers poems that praise and lament, remember and contemplate. Several are small masterpieces: 'Playthings,' 'Fiancé, Fiancée,' and 'Weekday, City' are jewels. What a treasure. What a pleasure."
— Richard Hoffman
author, PEOPLE ONCE REAL
"With lush imagery driven by precision subtext, Ilan Mochari’s PLAYTHINGS astounds. It is a bounty of music, forms, and lyric and narrative beauty."
—Quintin Collins
Author, CLAIM TICKETS FOR STOLEN PEOPLE
In PLAYTHINGS, Ilan Mochari offers the natural world not as a retreat or possession, but as a charged field of presence—intricate, resilient, and often overlooked. These lyric poems, crystalline in form and musical in their restraint, explore the uneasy tension between reverence for nature and the quiet violence we inflict upon it. With a keen eye for minute detail and a deep attunement to rhythm, syntax, and vibration, the speaker seeks alignment—of thought, feeling, and act—in a world that resists such coherence. Whether telescoping into a pine needle—'we hadn’t noticed the beige blades beneath our feet / as if we expected needles to be spry in response'—or listening for the unspoken in wind or station, these poems invite the reader to attend: to the seen and the unseen, to transgression and forgiveness, where 'bones bloom like blessings from holier lands.'"
—Dzvinia Orlowsky
Author, BAD HARVEST and THOSE ABSENCES NOW CLOSEST
"There’s a frisky lyric language to the poems in PLAYTHINGS, a playfulness that belies the dark urgency of their underlying themes. Ilan Mochari skillfully jump-cuts from vivid particulars of the urban quotidian, say, an epic rendering of a spilled Starbucks latte, or a sketch of a coatless teenager waiting for the bus, then swerving into strange realms of animalia: a litany of spiders, the bestiary of pollinators inhabiting a Mexican gum tree, a museum exhibit of haunting deer skulls by Georgia O’Keeffe. In precise, irreverent braidings of texture, musicality and pathos, Mochari’s words remind us of how important the practice of play can be to grasp the wondrous, disorienting, and sometimes terrifying nature of the worlds we find ourselves inhabiting."
—Robbie Gamble
Author, A CAN OF PINTO BEANS
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ABOUT ZINSKY THE OBSCURE
“A powerful debut with Dickensian touches in its heartbreaking and occasionally humorous chronicle of the life of a modern young man.” – Kirkus Reviews
“This wry debut novel takes on the classic coming-of-age saga, and it makes the reader rethink common assumptions about how young people get from here to there.” – Booklist
“This eloquent novel from Mochari...is both bleak and affecting.” – Publishers Weekly
“Brutally funny....forged from the same literary hearth that has given us such delightful and fussy oddballs as Ignatius J. Reilly, Don Quixote, and Kilgore Trout....this book has the scope of
PLAYTHINGS is now available on Bookshop.org and Amazon!
https://bookshop.org/p/books/playthin...
https://www.amazon.com/Playthings-Ila...
ABOUT PLAYTHINGS
"Ilan Mochari’s voice in PLAYTHINGS is exquisite in its range, its responsiveness, its singing. These are poems to be savored and read many times. Whether he is writing about trees native to Mexico, spiders native to his bathroom, or memories native to boyhood, his engagement with the world delivers poems that praise and lament, remember and contemplate. Several are small masterpieces: 'Playthings,' 'Fiancé, Fiancée,' and 'Weekday, City' are jewels. What a treasure. What a pleasure."
— Richard Hoffman
author, PEOPLE ONCE REAL
"With lush imagery driven by precision subtext, Ilan Mochari’s PLAYTHINGS astounds. It is a bounty of music, forms, and lyric and narrative beauty."
—Quintin Collins
Author, CLAIM TICKETS FOR STOLEN PEOPLE
In PLAYTHINGS, Ilan Mochari offers the natural world not as a retreat or possession, but as a charged field of presence—intricate, resilient, and often overlooked. These lyric poems, crystalline in form and musical in their restraint, explore the uneasy tension between reverence for nature and the quiet violence we inflict upon it. With a keen eye for minute detail and a deep attunement to rhythm, syntax, and vibration, the speaker seeks alignment—of thought, feeling, and act—in a world that resists such coherence. Whether telescoping into a pine needle—'we hadn’t noticed the beige blades beneath our feet / as if we expected needles to be spry in response'—or listening for the unspoken in wind or station, these poems invite the reader to attend: to the seen and the unseen, to transgression and forgiveness, where 'bones bloom like blessings from holier lands.'"
—Dzvinia Orlowsky
Author, BAD HARVEST and THOSE ABSENCES NOW CLOSEST
"There’s a frisky lyric language to the poems in PLAYTHINGS, a playfulness that belies the dark urgency of their underlying themes. Ilan Mochari skillfully jump-cuts from vivid particulars of the urban quotidian, say, an epic rendering of a spilled Starbucks latte, or a sketch of a coatless teenager waiting for the bus, then swerving into strange realms of animalia: a litany of spiders, the bestiary of pollinators inhabiting a Mexican gum tree, a museum exhibit of haunting deer skulls by Georgia O’Keeffe. In precise, irreverent braidings of texture, musicality and pathos, Mochari’s words remind us of how important the practice of play can be to grasp the wondrous, disorienting, and sometimes terrifying nature of the worlds we find ourselves inhabiting."
—Robbie Gamble
Author, A CAN OF PINTO BEANS
----
ABOUT ZINSKY THE OBSCURE
“A powerful debut with Dickensian touches in its heartbreaking and occasionally humorous chronicle of the life of a modern young man.” – Kirkus Reviews
“This wry debut novel takes on the classic coming-of-age saga, and it makes the reader rethink common assumptions about how young people get from here to there.” – Booklist
“This eloquent novel from Mochari...is both bleak and affecting.” – Publishers Weekly
“Brutally funny....forged from the same literary hearth that has given us such delightful and fussy oddballs as Ignatius J. Reilly, Don Quixote, and Kilgore Trout....this book has the scope of
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 18, 2026
Ilan Mochari explores the natural world and the thoughtless harm-and joy-with which we inhabit it. Candid, vivid, and musical, the poems in Playthings are rousing meditations on subjects ranging from moons to miscarriages, gum trees to Georgia O'Keeffe skulls. Clarity and compassion shine through, as does a world-weary pathos that elevates the riveting material at hand. Thank you to Ilan Mochari and Finishing Line Press for a copy of this.
Thoughtfulness and beauty are the two words that come to mind while reading this book of poetry. From verse about trees and spiders, to one about a baseball field, Mochari finds the extraordinary in things that can often be overlooked - those quiet reflections that we can have when we just pause and take a look around us. A reminder that we need to care for our world and hold our memories dear, this debut poetry collection is one that is meant to be savored and reread.
Thoughtfulness and beauty are the two words that come to mind while reading this book of poetry. From verse about trees and spiders, to one about a baseball field, Mochari finds the extraordinary in things that can often be overlooked - those quiet reflections that we can have when we just pause and take a look around us. A reminder that we need to care for our world and hold our memories dear, this debut poetry collection is one that is meant to be savored and reread.
April 17, 2026
I was struck by the inventiveness, lyrical beauty, and range of these poems. With compassion and an eye for telling details, Mochari writes about everything from an elegy-worthy variety of evergreen trees, to the survival-instinct creativity of spiders, to the sense of loss after a miscarriage. These are poems to return to, and each new reading of them brings fresh rewards and insights.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews