Valu-Plus

Poetry. "Ryan Eckes' VALU-PLUS continues his incisive, wry, sincere, & gorgeous examination of the city- landscape. In Eckes' work, the city—Philadelphia, specifically—cannot be contained, but is well lived in & observed & explored. There is 'a box to be gutted / between dollar tree and footlocker' & 'a worry of rowhomes the body / aches out of.' Place in Eckes' poems can shift its shape between the gutted box & the infinitely expansive—'a box / spraypainted / on the wall / in red / for stickball.' A box of air—it both is & is not there. & the city is something we are in & we carry with us in these wonderful poems. Their stubborn, brilliant sound will return to you as you walk down the street. VALU-PLUS is an archive, a love-letter, a political sharp edge, a report from the adjunct-field, a wondering over 'how we / live this country' & 'how to live in a fucked / world.'"—Pattie McCarthy