Regaining Unconsciousness

Mullen’s striking latest, her first collection since 2013’s Urban Tumbleweed, interrogates an increasingly online world with a keen eye for the eerie. “As I Wander Lonely in the Cloud” opens with the line “Smart machines armed with proprietary algorithms remain attentive to my wishes.” The book inhabits a dystopian landscape in which “a computer-generated tempest agitates the Pacific,” reminding readers of the inextricable relationship between technology and climate disaster. Even against the backdrop of a crumbling planet, the images are dazzling: “On your way to the end of the earth, you cruise the garish boulevard blinged out with glittering rhinestones.” Mullen’s poems are surprising and idiosyncratic; readers encounter robot spouses, billionaires sent to space in capsules, and an AI chatbot. The pandemic casts a shadow as the speaker sifts through a disconnected world in search of community. Ultimately, the collection celebrates human connection and spirit: “you who have been/ a creeping crawling thing,/ awake, take flight.” This wildly imaginative work speaks to the present times with a powerful urgency. (Aug.)