"Zine: Untitled Adult" by Nana (twitter). I love the short format of these. It's easy to constantly worry as a writer "is this too short?" or "is this too long?", but the character limit imposed by the platform these were posted on make these very readable snippets of long continuous thoughts. They end up being the perfect length. Nana expressed "My original poems and short stories have been published and performed both on international (USA, Singapore, and Indonesia) and local platforms, in Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, and English. These poems were all written in 2019 to fit various online social platforms such as a short-lived newsletter, Lex, and Twitter; hence the lack of titles. Also, as someone who identifies as non-binary, I thought this zine title was such a happy coincidence! I’ve arranged the poems in such a way so that there is no real way to know where and how each poem begins and ends. I’d like to hear your interpretations!".
I think offering such a free-flow title-less work offers unique experiences to every reader, which I always think is a great and interesting approach to writing something. This collection is 44 pages, but again, it's highly readable. Sometimes it felt clear to me that poems were separate poems, but some three pages in a row felt deeply related. You have no way of knowing. It's almost like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story with poems instead. Of course that's just my interpretation, which is neat to know every reader could find the poems so different from page to page.
Such a various collection goes over several topics. Religion, growth, moving past mistreatment, aging, change, uncertainty, loneliness, feeling unsure of if you're doing the whole 'being a person' thing right. Bullshit from medical professionals, romance, sex, heartbreak, roles in society, family, parents, children, everything, and an entire year of someone's life and those details per page make cameos as well. All in all there's a little something for everyone, and it's a great zine with a whole lot of poems to sift through.
"I should fold xeroxed apologies in tri-fold pamphlets, pass through thin tin slots, a coin to weigh down heavy hearts plastered on the first page and mosaic word cuttings bearing different dates."