EAST SIDE SOLITUDE
East Side Solitude is a mixed poetry and prose journal about love, longing, and liminality in the Pacific Northwest. Asyia Gover reveals the mysterious leading characters through a series of vignettes that trace their tragic romance from the Middle East, to the Far East, to the East and West Coasts of the US. These experimental poems and illustrations dazzle the reader’s appetite as if they were “simmering curry, flame-licked beef, … hot shawarma.” Follow along with this heartfelt collection to find out if the semi-fictional personae in East Side Solitude ever reach reconciliation and justice in the midst of “the obscured otherworld, the / opposite of the train horn, / the ears closed to alarm, / the city subdued with stillness.”
East Side Solitude is now available to order from Finishing Line Press!
THANK YOU SO MUCH to those who pre-ordered! You helped make this dream come true!
EAST SIDE SOLITUDE
Cover art by Phoenix Wing @sweatygirldreams
“I wait for the pungence of dairy farms to pass on the way to paradise. The clouds are taunting me today with a coy blush on the cornflower blanket, bruises on thin soymilk skin. The best colors as usual peek out in the west; then a right turn I didn’t want to take, and they are behind me. Driving into this bowl of mountains, I feel profoundly at home, although the jagged peaks punctuate the scene like a sickened dream. It’s flirtatious, the essence of cedarwood and sandalwood, lilacs along the fence, flowers on mossy trees, a spring-green fringe. A reminder to hold on to the precious magic of being myself, never mind how the other girls hated my denim and musk. I am radiating that which I wish to attract. Let all their faces be rubbed into it, they who dare taste the salt of my skin.”
Excerpt from “Springtime on 546” by Asyia Gover
Praise for East Side Solitude
“East Side Solitude ignites every sense while reaching across time and space. Reading this collection is like flitting through interwoven snapshots, each piece calling back and forward towards the next. Themes of loss, ancestry, intimacy are explored through deeply sensual depictions that make the narrator’s yearning real in the body of the reader.”
– Romeo Romero, author of thresheld (2023) and descendant (2018)
@mxromeoromero https://www.mxromeoromero.com/
“Asyia Gover’s compact book of poetry, prose, and illustrations is an intimate collection that often returns to phrased imagery of ancestors, scorpions, lilac, spices, skin on soy milk, and skin on skin. The Aroma can transport you into this slice of life during a tumultuous period that highlights and reveals the unique situations everybody found themselves in. The book is a sort of magical-realist journey through the psyche in the throes of the pandemic, where time warped – shrank, and expanded – giving us a glimpse of interpersonal love, decolonization, and searing nostalgia. East Side Solitude has an air of psychedelic melancholy that stays with you long after you have finished the last words.”
– Justin Gallant; educator, activist, and artist
@phrasebouquet
Why Pre-order?
- Title: East Side Solitude
- Contributors: Asyia Gover, Phoenix Wing
- Publisher: Finishing Line Press
- ISBN: 979-8-88838-645-3
- Release date: August 16, 2024
- Genres: Poetry
- Love & Erotica
- Women Writers
- Asian-American
- Keywords: second-generation, multicultural romance, Pacific Northwest, Chinese-American, short fiction, poetry journal, illustrations, covid-19
- Themes: grief, forgiveness, recovery
- Format: chapbook, mixed media
- Audience: young adult + up
- Order on the publisher’s website HERE
EAST SIDE SOLITUDE
Mixed Media Chapbook published August 2024
East Side Solitude is a mixed poetry and prose journal about love, longing, and liminality in the Pacific Northwest. Asyia Gover reveals the mysterious leading characters through a series of vignettes that trace their tragic romance from the Middle East, to the Far East, to the East and West Coasts of the US. These two second-generation Americans navigate the temptations and traps of young adulthood while struggling to stay tender and connected throughout this narrative poetry chapbook. With an introspective and somber tone fitting of Covid-19-era literature, Gover’s work walks the reader through vivid motifs of natural elements to explore themes of self-destruction, regret, loyalty, and reverence. These experimental poems and illustrations dazzle the reader’s appetite as if they were “simmering curry, flame-licked beef, … hot shawarma.” Gover’s vulnerability stands out as a unifying strength of this work, even as she tells the story with tongue in cheek, such as “In those moments, when my lips pressed into your chest, when our left hands connected, or when we linked our breaths, I was casting no spell.” Lest her wounded lovers reminisce in a contextual vacuum, Gover’s slices of life draw attention to addiction, anti-Blackness, colonialism, and housing insecurity as examples of forces that carve out the characters’ destinies. Follow along with this heartfelt collection to find out if the semi-fictional personae in East Side Solitude ever reach reconciliation and justice in the midst of “the obscured otherworld, the / opposite of the train horn, / the ears closed to alarm, / the city subdued with stillness.”
Animi
Animi was a sinister science fiction mystery that concluded Asyia’s partnership with Odyssey Middle School’s theater class. When the brilliant and inquisitive Skye transfers to a new school for very gifted children, she feels out of place in more than just social ways. Though her confidence has plummeted, her keen eye for detail and her emotional insight keeps her on the edge of a constellation of disturbances in town. Is anyone else thinking what Skye’s thinking right now?! The clues unfold in Animi….
This Was Your Life
This Was Your Life was a one-act play about an Anyteen reading a choose-your-own-adventure book. Written by Asyia Gover exclusively for the theater class of Odyssey Middle School, This Was Your Life follows Daniel, a goofy but introspective teen, as he avoids the awkward question from his parents: “What are you gonna do with your life?” Just the mere thought of the future is enough to flummox him, until his sister gives him a mysterious book. Will Daniel find a vision of his future by exploring the past? He may not be any closer to choosing what colleges he wants to apply to, but he’s never chosen an adventure like this before.
This Was Your Life Scene I by shebledgreenink on deviantArt
Beyond the Mountains
Beyond the Mountains was a stage play written by Asyia Gover for the theater class of Odyssey Middle School. Glen O’Malley, the son of an Irish hero long past his glory days, meets a mysterious lady who inspires him to strike out on his own, finally leaving his sleepy village and his monotonous farm life behind. Along the way, his courageous naivete catches the interest of some magical companions, who lead him to the secrets about this woman and her past that everyone except Glen seems to know. Does the couple run off into the sunset and live happily ever after? Or is there more to this story to which young love doesn’t speak? Find out as we accompany Glen on his coming-of-age journey Beyond the Mountains!
The Spokesman Review: Odyssey stages student play
Fiona
I’m not one of those guys. I’ll just say that now. She brings this out of me.
She was crafted from the sea, with a faint layer of pale skin over muscles that gracefully curve, undulate, constantly in motion, now elegantly flowing away from my hands, now savagely crashing into me. I tell her that sometimes and she says I don’t need to charm her anymore; I’m already on top of her, her bare breasts just an inch from my chest, her legs fastened around my waist, her wild red curls fanned out on the pillow. Fire on the sea. When she notices my tongue hesitating to make those words, she ties it to hers.
The Romans adored the straight line; the Celts adored the curve and the spiral. Much as I wish I could pay an appropriate tribute to all of hers, I simply don’t have time; they’re infinite. Every time I try to pick a new set of contours to taste, a new lock of hair to play with. My brain is empty except for the image of a goddess rising from the ocean, the exquisite paradox of a body surrounding me and the same body tangled up and throwing a fit in my arms.
Without fail, she always manages to leave before I wake up. Just once, I’d kill to see her in a shirt and shorts she scavenged from my drawers, or make her bacon and eggs, or tell her I love her.
“Fiona” by Asyia Gover, originally published in SEXT (boys who like butterflies, 2011)
NSFW full version available on deviantArt (must login to view)
Asyia Gover Poetry & Prose 