Cover image of the book SNOW by Lara Glenum

SNOW by Lara Glenum (2024)

In SNOW (Action Books, 2024), Lara Glenum chops and screws the Grimms’ tale of Snow White, but instead of slowing things down, she turns up the tempo as the mother-daughter drama pours forth in propulsive and lively lyric poems. It’s a common story of “Mothers slicing into daughters // Daughters biodegrading at the speed of light,” a “painloop playing out across centuries.” Snow and femme pleasure are a threat to the Kween who lives to uphold the patriarchy, serve the empire, and make the trains run on time—you’ll have to read the book to know what kind of trains we’re talking about. The book is a dark, funny, horny, and violent reimagining that offers much to delight in, from the wicked and perverse humor to the exciting and inventive language throughout. Among those inventions are new compound words, such as eyebeast, cuntstruck, milkhex, meatfrills, deathswoon, and motherlight, to list a few. The descriptions are clever and cutting, as in the poem “Daughter Cells / Daughter Sells,” whose speaker, the mirror, describes the daughter as “a crime scene / A ready-made / murder victim,” and later, states the role of mother “can be played by any ghastly / old roadkill / Any burbling old meatlump wielding a milktit & a cleaver.” Wordplay ranges from internet speak and text shorthand to double entendres and alternative variations by omission as Snow’s would-be hero Prince Charming loses the “C” and becomes Prince Harming of the Royal House of Ugh, “who made their kazillions / from data mining & black-ops / Revenge porn & / bad performance art.” However, there are no saviors in this collection, and there is no happy ending—though there is a lot of cum. Glenum masterfully distills this classic tale and amplifies the grotesque, giving it new life all while popping and locking and dazzling. AI could never. 5 out of 5 sacs of blood.

5 red Cs dripping in blood, representing 5 out of 5 sacs of blood

—Gina Myers