Sometimes reading poetry can feel exhilarating, like you are finally seeing and being seen. Other times it’s a slog that leaves you desperate for a nap to process what you just read. Patrycja Humienik’s debut poetry collection, “We Contain Landscapes,” is a healthy mix of both.

A self-described queer immigrant, Humienik considers questions of chronic illness and inheritance, of a daughter’s duty and an immigrant’s place in the world.

The poems make use of the canon’s go-to imagery — rivers, seas, flowers — while exploring new territory in spiral staircases and “un-ribboning.” There’s a sensual, ephemeral, dream- like quality to the collection, woven in with lines like, “Do to me what sunlight does to a river.” They demand extra time to imagine and deserve a moment to bask in.

Deep veins of nature running throughout cause a jarring contrast with modern happenings — one moment light filters through leaves, and the next we’re scrolling Instagram. Juxtaposition is the name of the game in “We Contain Landscapes.”

Valleys meet mountains, enjambment breaks up thoughts. One poem is a single, two-page-long run-on sentence. Another is one short stanza containing a series of questions, a collaborative poem that takes meaning only when the reader pauses to answer each one, forming a conversation. “Sorry For Taking” is a panic attack- infused series of missed calls and bad phone connections allegorical to unheeded warning signs of a warming climate.

Throughout the collection, poems provide context that enriches other entries, so that by the time you reach the end you could start over and have a new experience altogether.

Humienik’s is a powerful debut, a conundrum as rich and arresting as it is sorrowful and celebratory and nuanced. — Donna Edwards, Associated Press

The LGBTQ+ community has a long, sometimes fraught relationship with the horror genre; there’s a kinship in the Othering, in being feared and hated and cast out from society. CD Esklison’s debut poetry collection examines this connection, whether overtly or by putting the two things side by side and leaving the associations up to the reader’s interpretation.

“Scream/Queen” is broken into parts with titles that play on sub- genres. “Para/Normal,” “Found/ Footage,” and “Body/Horror” take a more literal second meaning as individual words separated by a slash.

Employing a whole range of poetry types, from the more common couplets and free verse to blackout and cleave poetry, Eskilson’s voice pitches between lyrical legato and percussive staccato.

Eskilson references favorites like “Halloween,” “The Witch” and “The Fly,” noting that “each horror movie archives a resistance.” The poems examine the celebration and sorrow behind that concept with intelligence and verve.

In “How Are They Picking the Next Halloween Director?” Eskilson draws parallels between a horror movie antagonist and an unassuming queer person upon whom society projects fear; who, regardless of how small and non- threatening they try to make themselves, is seen as a menace. But it’s not all scary monsters; one entry about “When Meryl Streep Sings ‘Dancing Queen’ in ‘Mamma Mia!’ ” imagines the women in Eskilson’s family getting to experience that movie-climax level of happiness.

The collection is introspective and highly vulnerable, showcasing revealing poems about chronic illness and failed relationships. Eskilson writes in conversation with contemporaries, family history and current events, weaving in interviews, pop culture references and other poets’ work for a solid collection that respects the art while pushing boundaries.

“Scream/Queen” is a breezy 80-ish pages, but definitely not a book to breeze through. — Donna Edwards