Hunting the Cosmos: Flash Fiction and Poetry for Remedios Varo

by Luanne Castle

Print (softcover): $14.95
 

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The poems and prose of Hunting the Cosmos engage with and interrogate the art of midcentury Spanish-Mexican surreal artist Remedios Varo, expanding the absurd dreamwork, surprising realities, and meanings of paintings and text. The occult, technology, fairy tales, and religion all play roles. Transformation through alchemy, magic, and science is a significant theme, as well as the metamorphosis of art and experience into new art. Award-winning poet Luanne Castle brings Varo’s sensibilities to life on the page in this beautiful ekphrastic collection of prose poems, lyric poems, and microfiction.

POETRY / General

ISBN: 978-1-971191-39-3 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

Released November 10, 2026 | Copyright 2026

48 pages

Author Biography

Hunting the Cosmos is Luanne Castle’s sixth book. She has published four award-winning poetry collections and Scrap: Salvaging a Family, a memoir in flash. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, River Teeth, Your Impossible Voice, JMWW, Grist, Fourteen Hills, Verse Daily, One Art, Lunch Ticket, Saranac Review, Pleiades, The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Thimble, Flash Boulevard, Cleaver, Moon City, Moon Park, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, BULL, and more. Her mixed media collages have been published in many journals.

Endorsements

“An absolutely brilliant foray into the realms of the uncanny . . . These ekphrastic poems and stories guide us in the footsteps of the artist through the labyrinth of the psyche, where everything is familiar yet nothing is as it seems.”
—Lorette C. Luzajic, founding editor, The Ekphrastic Review  and The Mackinaw

“Luanne Castle presents a magical collection of surreal, sad, and sometimes wry vignettes in prose and verse, perfect for any admirer of art in general and Varo in particular. But where Castle transcends ekphrasis is in the connective tissue poems, exploring her relationship with art, who and how it is taught, and why it matters. Indeed,this is a marvelous assay against the thoughtless machine: humans connecting across time through artifact. Like Castle, I can only pray ‘The witch art stoke[s] more witch art.’”
—Nadia Arioli, editor-in-chief of Thimble and author of Mother Fur

“This collection of flash fiction and poems is inspired by the surreal paintings of Remedios Varo . . . Each piece responds to a painting but stands on its own, using clear, direct language to explore transformation, power, memory, and imagination. The tone shifts between dark humor and quiet lyricism, keeping the work accessible even as it enters strange territory. Readers who enjoy short forms, surreal imagery, and emotionally resonant work will be drawn to how these pieces create complete worlds in small space and how they invite us to see everyday fears and desires through a more magical, unexpected lens.”
—Francine Witte, author of Radio Water

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