blush / river / fox

In their first English-language publication, Swedish artist and writer Nygren pushes and pulls language forms, creating a tripartite poetry collection that is visceral, playful, urgent, and fragmented. Nygren conveys experience as an autistic, queer poet through works that are often sparse on the page, containing intentional misspellings and gaps that interrupt the reader and create space to contemplate meaning. “Blush” focuses attention on the body, relationships, and the animal world, and Nygren communicates a sense of sensory overwhelm through repetition, swift focal changes, and smooth movement between interior and exterior observation. Drawings of faces, bodies, and family portraits illustrate this section, and the design incorporates the use of pink, which echoes the intimate nature of bodies and health. The middle piece, “River,” delves into a sibling relationship and birth, presenting a seemingly autobiographical narrative. Here, words and phrases run into each other, blocks of text run down the page with no line breaks, and Nygren’s fascination with language resonates. The last piece again utilizes white space and page breaks to create a pause, allowing the word choice to shine.