Katie Sions

Practitioner Joy

Arts & Literature

“Murphy’s poetry unfolds in an uncanny valley of sorts, where the landscape is both disturbingly post-human and credibly recognizable. These poems are airtight, laced with a delicate hodgepodge of technological absurdism and intergalactic longing. The reality in Murphy’s lines is that our tools of escape—meditation, exercise, neighborly courtesies—are ineffective substitutes for a future in which present-day planet Earth, Murphy’s main antagonist, can be left behind. Taken as a whole, the book evokes the sensibility of Naked Lunch with only about a quarter of the surrealism, a tough truth to confront.”

Storage Shed

Arts & Literature

“Murphy’s poetry unfolds in an uncanny valley of sorts, where the landscape is both disturbingly post-human and credibly recognizable. These poems are airtight, laced with a delicate hodgepodge of technological absurdism and intergalactic longing. The reality in Murphy’s lines is that our tools of escape—meditation, exercise, neighborly courtesies—are ineffective substitutes for a future in which present-day planet Earth, Murphy’s main antagonist, can be left behind. Taken as a whole, the book evokes the sensibility of Naked Lunch with only about a quarter of the surrealism, a tough truth to confront.”