If You Can Hear This, by Victor McConnell

Poetry, chapbook, 48 pages, from Bottlecap Features. If You Can Hear This is a collection of poems that explores aloneness, grief, and love in modern America. Tender moments of parenthood are interspersed with narratives that travel through landscapes both banal and absurd. Lovers wade into a river at night, speed traps remind us of fragility, and an old man watering tugs at the heart. Ultimately, we are left pondering not only where we will be in the end, but what (and who) will be left when we’re gone. Victor McConnell grew up in a small town in Texas and graduated from Dartmouth’s creative writing program in 2004. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in a variety of literary journals, such as the Los Angeles Review, New Ohio Review, Dogwood Literary Journal, and Driftwood Press, among others. His first book, a collection of short stories titled WHEN EVEN THE BONES HAVE THINNED, is scheduled for publication in 2026. He lives in Golden, Colorado with his son.