The Breakup

Mag Gabbert’s second chapbook offers her characteristic alloy of playfulness and emotional resonance while exploring its own unique formal approach to erasure. The Breakup consists of a single long poem separated into disconnected sections, each of which seeks to uncover the surreal-and sometimes even magical-layers of hidden narrative beneath life’s most mundane and isolating moments. Selected by Kaveh Akbar as the winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residencies Chapbook Award, this collection excavates wings from drawings, ether from togetherness, and rain from the speaker’s brain.