As If And, Zach Peckham
New Mundo Press, 2026
I
was curious about the full-length debut by Cleveland poet, editor and publisher
Zach Peckham, As If And (Queens NY/Buenos Aires, Argentina: New Mundo
Press, 2026), following his chapbook cycle hum (Sistrum Books,
2025). Clustered across seven untitled sections, the poems that make up As
If And are built as accumulations, short phrases and individual words
stacked in staccato upon each other, allowing the narratives to unfold as they
will down each individual page. “We wanted / A gauze / To step / Thru like a /
Wall,” begins the five page gymnastic “And Effect,” “Curtain / Of water / Which
flat / -tens a city // In a / Far / Away place we // Want / -ed to be / A buildingful
[.]” Further through the same poem, writing: “”To a livery / ‘s prism // Spun /
Sing / -ing chamber of / Schism // -ed re- / Volver // Offered soluble / Solid
object // Re: bodies / Spawned / And -ified [.]” Peckham writes a stagger, staccato;
a way through and into, writing perception across a sequence of fractures. As
he writes, within the five page “Crossing Co”: “the scene / what it is // you
do here / when time is // in arrears / mooned in // to a clear / -ing pock- //
marked pocket / little envelope // of a life / enveloped [.]”
Working through a sequence of extensions through a cavalcade of mixed and fragmented sound and syntax, there’s an element of simultaneous propulsion and meditative slowness across these staggered phrases, placing sounds and meaning in an array of such wonderful collision (made more forceful through a printing error that replicates the first ten pages twice, an accident it took a few minutes to realize). Certain poems even hold an echo of works by such as Vancouver poets Jeff Derken [see my review of his latest here] or Windsor poet Louis Cabri [see my review of his latest here] or Calgary poet ryan fitzpatrick [see my review of their latest here] for the use of accumulation and short/clipped phrases across social and ecological concerns, such as the poem “Purpose Built,” that begins: “exciting opportunity / a subdivision / things I’ve had / burned off me / or otherwise / beside a highway / immaculate frontages / this dewdrop world / takes place inside / an avocado universe / so there’s that [.]” Overall, there’s something quite stunning in the way Peckham pulls at each poem’s thread to extend the lyric as far as it might travel, taking it a bit further, pulling without fray or any stretch of the poem falling apart, away. Caryl Pagel describes this collection as “a noise poetics amassed from scrap parts,” and I don’t think there’s any better way to describe it. Or, as the six-page poem “Initiate’s Lament” ends:
a slip
this life
a blooper
reel a blip
a number
a clip
a slumber
a slip
a horse
you ride
a box
you tick
a pen
you click
submit
and save
a lathe
a spade
a cave
a crypt
rob mclennan lives in Ottawa, where he has never won a book award. His latest poetry title, edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), has just landed! As well as new chapbooks with Broke Press and through the subpress collective, so that’s pretty cool.
