The Season of Lilacs in Monstrous

Author: Francesca Kritikos

Publisher: Blush (2025)

The season of lilacs is monstrous is a study in contradictions: candied almonds that break teeth, lilacs that can't be milked, getting the things you want then breaking them like glass. Francesca Kritikos writes hunger and gluttony, violence and power, sex and shame with equal parts care and severity. Brutal in their precision and cutting in their spareness, these poems hold beauty and love and all that one sanctifies up to the light then finely carve back to expose a darker matter beneath. For Kritikos' speaker, there is no transformation, only transfiguration—a whittling of the self down to its most base form.