Catalogue of Ripening

No one is safe in the world of Sabrina Guo's electrifying debut, Catalogue of Ripening. The village fish are poisoned with mercury. Children rehearse their endings with lockdown drills. A seawall becomes the sea. Balancing narrative impulse and lyric flair, Guo takes us on a journey from childhood to adolescence, from innocence to knowledge-the world no longer a site of wonder but corruption, contamination, cancer. Through poems that realize the world's capacity for violence first in language, then in action, Guo captures the unique anxieties-and joys-of growing up in Generation Z.