Everywhere Antennas

Delporte’s latest is an examination of modern life through poetry and simple but affecting colored pencil drawings. The first-person narrative is told in an illustrated diary format that makes the volume feel autobiographical as the narrator battles frequent headaches and depression. When she hits upon the idea that the physical misery that drives her may be caused by a sensitivity to the electromagnetic waves emitted by just about every modern convenience. She escapes to the country, searching for wellness and peace. Delporte’s previous book, Journal, was the author’s diary; her narrative technique brings the same sense of immediacy to fiction, especially when paired with her emotional art—it often reads, and feels, like illustrated poetry. The strength of the book lies in the changing art—the drawings are rougher and less focused when the narrator is in the city (among antennas) and more focused, detailed, clean, clear-headed, and lovely when she is free of the city (and its many antennas). (May)