Here we have two wizards working with two different but complementary kinds of magic. Sierra Nelson writes bioluminescent lines using various personas and scientific guises to illuminate the dark corners of melancholy and loneliness. You can find her latest in The Lachrymose Report, which is the only poetry book I know of with an index that's also a poem in its own right. Kary Wayson runs a tight ship—terse, musical lyrics that unspool whole logics from a single word or sound. Seattle poet Kary Wayson's second collection, The Slip, comes 11 years after her debut, American Husband, which itself came long after she'd been working the reading circuits as one of the country's most skillful lyric poets. For the sake of conversation, I'll risk what the book doesn't and reduce it to one narrative. The Slip's speaker has reached the end of longing for love in the way you long for it in your wild 20s (and your even wilder 30s). She now reflects on what good any of that longing did her, whether she'll ever long again, whether longing means being alive, and, if so, what that says about what she thinks living means. by Rich Smith