Umang Kalra’s “fig” proves that, even in apocalypse, there is still poetry. Exploring abuse, surveillance, and digital shadows that will surely outlive us, their chapbook demands that while we oppose capitalism, we also consider if real utopia even includes us. In a brimming world where the state watches over all of our actions, Kalra’s poetry asks the burning questions: “where will we put all our heart / emojis,” where will we put all our heart? - Samantha Fain, author of Coughing Up Planets (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press) & sad horse music (The Daily Drunk) In Umang Kalra’s fig, “walls are possibilities/ concretised into flesh”, bodies pile and the state surveills so efficiently that even the epistolaries have been redacted, the group chats are compromised and the priv twitters are prone to prying eyes. In this funny, ebullient and apocalypse-addled chapbook Umang Kalra plays with the tenderness, chaos and horniness of young adulthood, all in the shadow of state violence, which they make clear includes the interpersonal violences we often mistake for a separate category. Get ready to Ctrl+C whole poems while trying to pick a pull-quote to send to a friend. - Brendan Joyce, author of Character Limit and Love & Solidarity (Grieveland) I will never be able to be quiet about Umang Kalra’s work. This collection in particular is a little rat-tail around my heart. The intersection of want, capitalism, and violence is brought alive by Kalra in these pages, and it has a lot of questions for you. - Sophie Furlong Tighe There's a poetry in rotting fruit, a blooming even in descent, and a music to the most silent memories we have -- Umang Kalra sifts through all the texture and presents its collage to us in a petri dish. We are invited to lean in, to laugh, to hold our breath, to call that number at the end of the world and tell the breathing on the other end That Thing we have never said out loud. This is a sensory collection, meticulous yet organic. A universe waiting to multiply between your fingers and ready to burn a hole through your desk. Read it again and again. - Jess Rizkallah, author of the magic my body becomes