Graphic 3

Graphic #3

by Rachelle Toarmino

This micro-chapbook is a part of the 2019 Ghost City Press Summer Micro-Chap Series.

Genres: Poetry

21 pages, Digital Chapbook

First published May 27, 2019

About the author

Rachelle Toarmino is a poet from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collections Hell Yeah and That Ex, as well as several chapbooks, most recently My Science, winner of the 2024 Sixth Finch Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in Poets.org, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Southeast Review, The Slowdown, and Omnidawn, which awarded her its 2024 Single Poem Broadside Prize. She earned her MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize. She is also the founding editor in chief of the literary publishing project Peach Mag and the creator and lead instructor of Beauty School, an independent poetry school. She lives in Buffalo.

Reviews

[Aidan Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Stop and Stare at RchTrmn's Weekend Read*

Graphic 3, the lively third and final installment of Rachelle Toarmino's paparazzi-inspired series of cut-up poetry microchaps, showcases the poet and culture critic's eye as well as her ear: She sees the desperate messages that we hide in plain sight, and hears the secret frequencies of the decisions we make alone with our mirrors.

The poems in Graphic 3, like their subjects, can become whatever their public needs and wants - but only on their terms. Thus we can listen with Kimye to the non-noise of "no chill." We can long with Millie Bobby Brown to "be strange / be stranger." With Miley we can stare down "Love in the time of law." At every turn we are confronted with imagined (or all too real?) celebrity perspectives -- real, raw human musings we're used to encountering as sterile tweets and "takes" -- on romance, power, desire, savory pettiness, the consumption of performed identities, and the quiddities of male, female, and epicene self-regard.

Graphic 3 is a triumph - perhaps soon we might see the trilogy in print.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this concept so much. My absolute favorite from this installment is "all eyes on kimye."

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so cool! I haven't read any of the other "Graphic" books by this author, but I kind of want to now! The format was super interesting, and all of the poems were actually like... really good? Sometimes found poems are hit or miss, but these are so thoughtful and interesting from the beginning to the end. These little vignettes based on paparazzi photos perfectly capture our obsession with celebrities.