nina jane drystek, a: of: in

Who among us fierce literary femmes does not have a, well, let’s call it … complicated relationship with Anaïs Nin? From Ottawa-based poet/literary excavator nina jane drystek, comes this over-ten-year-long erasure-based engagement with Nin’s A Spy in the House of Love. This chapbook is a sprawling, gorgeous feat of poetic experimentation. This book fragments and splinters as it opens up the complexities of Nin writing, its genderings, its bodies, its transitions and metamorphoses. It moves deftly from body to hotel room, from fantasy to stark realism, with a unique poetic voice that’s as sharp as Nin’s trademark eyebrow pencil. This. Book. Is. Beautiful.

Printed in a limited run of fifty copies, with Drystek’s own typesetting. Cover design by Dani Spinosa, who digitally chopped up an image of Nin, which is technically illegal.