Middle Child by Annie Muir Scott Tyrrell whether in the mind or

whether in the mind or the natural world

containing one poem from every title published by Smokestack since 2004

Lorraine Mariner

but perhaps the most interesting thing about his work is the use to which he puts features widely disseminated in contemporary poetry: randomness

avoiding the chair where they fucked

Middle Child by Annie Muir Scott Tyrrell whether in the mind orMiddle Child by Annie Muir is a book of sharp, funny, quietly brutal recognitions, where the everyday turns uncanny and the self keeps slipping between roles, versions, and borrowed scripts. Through poems that riff on Frankenstein, pop culture, pub lore, found images and borrowed forms, Muir writes the middle child's sensibility as a kind of heightened surveillance, noticing how bodies are appraised, threatened, desired, marketed, and made to perform.