BOOKS

Crumb-sized: Poems

Crumb-sized: Poems was published by Unnamed Press in 2017 and was a finalist in Etchings Press’ Whirling Prize in 2019.

Marlena Chertock grew up crumb-sized, with a rare bone disorder. She uses this skeletal dysplasia and chronic pain as a bridge to scientific poetry, often exploring the rich images in science and medicine, threading genetics, space, and nature into her work.

With frank humor, Chertock takes on varied and critical aspects of identity ― femininity, gender, sexuality ― as they relate (or don’t relate) to her disability, somehow succeeding in making them familiar and universal. Her poetry is one that challenges us to see our limitations, not as individuals but as people together, all of us, ultimately, crumb-sized. Chertock is an exciting and contemporary voice ― brutally honest, deeply humane and ultimately triumphant.

In the poem “Application to NASA,” she writes of her struggle to accept the physical limitations that will keep her bound to Earth, and yet, at the end she counters with this assertion:

still I’m strong. I may be one of the strongest
candidates you’ve ever had.

In another poem, she urges us to keep seeing beyond ourselves:

Keep magnifying the universe ―
because it’s still expanding, with or without you.

Accessible and plain-speaking, the poems of Crumb-sized ask questions anyone who has suffered a little can relate to.

In the press:

Reviewed in Chicago Review of Books
Reviewed in Vagabond City Lit
Reviewed in Lines+Stars
Reviewed in Duende
Reviewed in Savvy Verse & Wit
Interviewed on Stories that Empower podcast
Interviewed in Big Ten Network
Interviewed in Terp, University of Maryland’s alumni magazine
Interviewed in Calamus Journal
Interviewed in Rogue Agent
Interviewed in Hyype Online
Interview with Paul Semel
Interviewed for Noble/Gas Quarterly’s Objects of Derision
Interviewed in The Warrior, page 18

On the shelves:

On that one-way trip to Mars

onthatonewaytriptomarscover On that one-way trip to Mars went out of print in July 2020. It was published by Bottlecap Press in May 2016 and nominated for an Elgin Award in 2017.

On that one-way trip to Mars is a version of the Voyager’s Grand Tour, if the spacecraft had skeletal dysplasia. It is a space journey that includes aliens finding the Golden Record, the increasing warmth of the sun, and zero gravity to give aching bones a break. These poems travel the solar system. Blast into orbit and head on that one-way journey with them.

In the press:

Reviewed in Agape Editions
Listeded in Necessary Fiction’s Recommended Reading 2016
Reviewed in Star*Line from the Science Fiction Poetry Association
Reviewed in Vagabond City Lit
Reviewed in Cacti Fur
Reviewed in Beach Sloth