Publisher's Synopsis
"Gash Atlas is a nightmarish cartography of life in and beyond the Trump era. Through poetic and visual 'maps,' this collection surveys the cultural present while folding back nested histories of personal and cultural violence this moment contains. Emerging from this landscape is the character of Christopher Columbus, a simultaneously historical and surreal figure of colonial and sexual terror who has become omnipresent, infiltrating multiple institutions including the White House, the police, the TSA, the University, and the family home itself. As the book's speaker, a young white mother, works to resist her own complicated entanglement with Columbus, she becomes increasingly aware of her complicity in the violence he performs. A terrifying catalog of cultural wrongs leads to an intimate examination of the speaker's relationship with her Black family: 'I protect my children / from the world / that includes me.' Combining the visceral i
