CV2 Magazine Spring 2026

“The writing method Scott employs here, which he calls “social collage,” involves collecting and documenting scraps of language overheard, read on the street, or occurring to him as he moves through daily life.[…t]he impression is of well-crafted background music, audience chatter, or an inner monologue broadcast in real time.”

“The book also deals in the kind of stunning imagery that transcends any reliance on wordplay, as “lean streets turn milky with direction / a staccato bird tells time, seven chirrups to the hour” (71), and “Two cities you see from one another make a wall of mediary air; a balance of departure and return. Unphotographable, the thick thisness of distance” (95).”

“The pages are packed with cleverly rendered observations and bewitching reflections like, “Seeing is sedimentary, like shale or concrete, heaping grey on grey* (12) and “How much of life should be construed as one unending gesture? Threading the needle with words” (15).”

“There is both a strong anticapitalist momentum and a thrilling musicality permeating the collection.”

“If Coolidge took inspiration from avant garde music and his experience as a jazz drummer, Scott’s poetry too might recall an experimental noise project, its tones and whistles offering glimpses of both the ephemera and core essence of everyday life. Annie Dillard famously said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”; here, the life-poem emerges from the clatter of the city, from the droning minutiae of each day in its banality or chaos or quiet resonance:

Heat sound to rhythm
Output function spirit plane
Beat mean note reading
Reeds pummelling palms
Life grants us many bars, we are 

A finite section of the one 

Commuting music (41)”

– Ava Glendinning, Managing Editor, CV2 Magazine