Originally published by Green Mountains Review (2016): winner of the GMR Poetry Prize, selected by Olena Kalytiak Davis
In 1405, Christine de Pizan, the world's first professional writer, published an allegorical work called The Book of the City of Ladies, in which she imagined constructing (with the help of her fairy godmothers Reason, Rectitude, and Justice) a walled city where women could live safe from sexism, misogyny, and gendered violence. Six hundred years later, we still need such a city. Mega-City Redux charts a road-trip search for this mythical city today, with the help of 21st-century feminist heroes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena Warrior Princess, and Dana Scully from The X-Files.
" 'You gals look like you know how to party.' Pop open a PBR or order a Sex on the Beach and let Alyse Knorr guide you on a journey with Xena, Scully, and Buffy to a world 'as safe as it ever will be' from trauma and hopeless love in the age of screens. Mega-City Redux is essential architecture built from 'sword, suit, stake, and pen'--feminine, marvelous, and mega-tough."
--Mel Nichols, author of Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon
Alyse Knorr is an assistant professor of English at Regis University. She is also the author of the poetry collections Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016) and Annotated Glass (Furniture Press Books 2013); the non-fiction book Super Mario Bros. 3 (Boss Fight Books 2016); and four poetry chapbooks. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, and The Georgia Review, among others. She received her MFA from George Mason University.
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