Metem/psychosis by Junpei Tarashi

A hybrid collection that touches on rebuilding a body after trauma through myth, memory, and the animalistic and fungal elements of nature.

Jun Tarashi is currently considering the livelihood of frogs. Its previous work can be found in Chambers, After Happy Hour Review, and more.

“Arresting. Halting. An incantation to the beasts, beats and bit parts that tiptoe at the edges of the psyche. There is myth-making then myth-breaking. We are led through the life cycles of the creatures that exist outside and allow them to become creatures within. The collection dangerously flirts with traditional forms, teasing out a narrative that winds its way through individual pieces. The repetition employed throughout is deftly utilized to lull us into that dreamscape where all is possible. “You’re sitting at a bar and you’re drinking something cheap. / You’re sitting at a bar and you’re drinking something expensive.” We are hypnotized and allowed to eavesdrop upon the myriad conversations of the creators in the poems. The scientific and the sensational collide and burst apart in this haunting collection. A work that illuminates the creatures, creations, and destructions that take place within us all.” —St[ephanie]ann Midwood, poet

“With raised awareness akin to knowing oneself at once and not at all, Junpei Tarashi smiths the dense trials of metamorphosis from heroes and gods and tragedies mightier than plain objectivity in his collection, Metem/psychosis. It’s a challenge of wills, a test of morality and reality, an Illiad of the mind becoming the body, and the body the mind. Reflection is both literal and thematic, utilizing repetition to remind us of what we know of ourselves, of the way we are perceived, and how little it truly is. With gutting, stunning images, and the invocation of fair language to dredge up the unholy things lying somewhere at the bottom of a lake, this collection prods at your mindscape, and questions the ways in which we build ourselves from oblivion.” —Kayla Renee, poetry editor of the winnow magazine