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The Map of My Vanishing
Some books feel like an open wound.
Here, set down in exquisite poetry, is a young man's story that for the reader feels like an act of trespassing. Our protagonist's journey begins brightly - a young boy standing at the edge of the world, eager and expectant, studying its beauty, revelling in the potential within himself. But drenched in feeling, he finds our world a violent home. Slowly, the body weakens, and the mind turns inward. What follows is both brutal and a spectacle of suffering, poetry as both wound and salve. A precise and personal autopsy, that in so being, is strikingly universal.
In clear reverence for the writers who raised him - Plath, Sexton, Nabokov, Woolf, Pessoa - James transforms his most private journals into a study of the modern mind at its most honest, like a diary that was never meant to be shared.
Here, set down in exquisite poetry, is a young man's story that for the reader feels like an act of trespassing. Our protagonist's journey begins brightly - a young boy standing at the edge of the world, eager and expectant, studying its beauty, revelling in the potential within himself. But drenched in feeling, he finds our world a violent home. Slowly, the body weakens, and the mind turns inward. What follows is both brutal and a spectacle of suffering, poetry as both wound and salve. A precise and personal autopsy, that in so being, is strikingly universal.
In clear reverence for the writers who raised him - Plath, Sexton, Nabokov, Woolf, Pessoa - James transforms his most private journals into a study of the modern mind at its most honest, like a diary that was never meant to be shared.
86 pages, Paperback
Published July 17, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2026
This is a poetry collection that feels incredibly intimate, raw and, at times, almost painfully difficult to look away from.
There is something deeply vulnerable about these poems, as if we were being allowed into a part of someone’s life that was never really meant to be seen. James writes about growing up, the body, the mind, suffering and the gradual loss of the person we once thought we would become.
What I found most powerful is the contrast between the beauty of the writing and the darkness of what it explores. The poetry can be incredibly beautiful, but there is always something underneath it that hurts. It feels like watching someone trying to make sense of their own pain by turning it into words, sometimes as a wound, sometimes as a way of healing.
I also loved how literary the collection feels. You can sense the presence of writers like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Fernando Pessoa and Nabokov, but James never loses his own voice. His poems feel personal and confessional, yet somehow manage to reach something universal.
*The Map of My Vanishing* is not an easy collection, but it is a beautiful one. A book about what happens when the world becomes difficult to inhabit, about the body and the mind, and about trying to find some meaning in the middle of it all.
Some books entertain you. Others leave a mark. This one definitely did.
There is something deeply vulnerable about these poems, as if we were being allowed into a part of someone’s life that was never really meant to be seen. James writes about growing up, the body, the mind, suffering and the gradual loss of the person we once thought we would become.
What I found most powerful is the contrast between the beauty of the writing and the darkness of what it explores. The poetry can be incredibly beautiful, but there is always something underneath it that hurts. It feels like watching someone trying to make sense of their own pain by turning it into words, sometimes as a wound, sometimes as a way of healing.
I also loved how literary the collection feels. You can sense the presence of writers like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Fernando Pessoa and Nabokov, but James never loses his own voice. His poems feel personal and confessional, yet somehow manage to reach something universal.
*The Map of My Vanishing* is not an easy collection, but it is a beautiful one. A book about what happens when the world becomes difficult to inhabit, about the body and the mind, and about trying to find some meaning in the middle of it all.
Some books entertain you. Others leave a mark. This one definitely did.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review