Uncle Time

Uncle Time is a collection of surrealist vignettes loosely inspired by Niespodziany’s upbringing in Nowhere, Indiana. Told through a series of narrative prose poems and micro snapshots, this chapbook taps into childhood, both real (his own seizures, his mother’s cancer, his uncle’s death) and imagined (his father eating a phone, his grandfather living in a clock, his mother keeping her knee caps in a jar). Uncle Time is inspired by the harrowing yet magical prose of Swiss author Aglaja Veteranyi, the minimalist visual poetry of Ohioan Barton Smock, and the domestic surrealism of Norwegian writer Gro Dahle. Playful and absurd yet devastating and bleak; a children’s book for adults or a cartoon not meant for kids.

"It is a strange and painful feast." - Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

"Made death new to me." - Hedgie Choi

"The poems are tender and eerie, and I wish there were more of them." - Rebecca Wadlinger