What do you think?
Rate this book
A Window That Can Neither Open Nor Close: Poems, Plots, Chance
An intimate and kaleidoscopic entry in the Multiverse series that excavates survival, storytelling, and coming to terms with an unruly mind.
In A Window That Can Neither Open nor Close, the stakes of writing are also the stakes of living. “Though I no longer wanted to die,” writes Lauren Russell, “our first years together were not easy … because I also did not want to live.” From this enigmatic in-between, Russell dives into cats and questions; compulsion and devotion; narrative and diagnosis; language and loneliness; scrupulosity and stasis; suicidality and love.
Resisting the neurotypical expectation to choose any one answer arising from her explorations, she invites readers to a pop quiz, a twelve-sided die, an abecedarian confession, a box of mirrors, several idiosyncratic diagnostic tools, and a suite of obsidian waiting rooms. Holding binaries in suspense, Russell seamlessly unfolds and enfolds the various operations of language, moving through forms with the restless brilliance of an architect turned ethicist turned collagist turned origamist. And everything, it seems, finds some way to turn back into poetry.
From psychological evaluation to clickbait, Russell transforms the world’s furious search for explanations into open inquiry. “How flat is the silence in your pocket?” she asks. “Is the inside of a wish an ossuary?” “Do questions stick you to the wall of sociability?” “Did I say I am making my own bestiary?” “What kind of cascade is this?” In a book dedicated to knowing, to not-knowing, and to its readers, Russell pulls back the curtain and invites us in.
In A Window That Can Neither Open nor Close, the stakes of writing are also the stakes of living. “Though I no longer wanted to die,” writes Lauren Russell, “our first years together were not easy … because I also did not want to live.” From this enigmatic in-between, Russell dives into cats and questions; compulsion and devotion; narrative and diagnosis; language and loneliness; scrupulosity and stasis; suicidality and love.
Resisting the neurotypical expectation to choose any one answer arising from her explorations, she invites readers to a pop quiz, a twelve-sided die, an abecedarian confession, a box of mirrors, several idiosyncratic diagnostic tools, and a suite of obsidian waiting rooms. Holding binaries in suspense, Russell seamlessly unfolds and enfolds the various operations of language, moving through forms with the restless brilliance of an architect turned ethicist turned collagist turned origamist. And everything, it seems, finds some way to turn back into poetry.
From psychological evaluation to clickbait, Russell transforms the world’s furious search for explanations into open inquiry. “How flat is the silence in your pocket?” she asks. “Is the inside of a wish an ossuary?” “Do questions stick you to the wall of sociability?” “Did I say I am making my own bestiary?” “What kind of cascade is this?” In a book dedicated to knowing, to not-knowing, and to its readers, Russell pulls back the curtain and invites us in.
- GenresPoetry
194 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 27, 2024
1 person is currently reading
30 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 4, 2025
3.75
Really strong start, I didn't love the middle to end portion quite as much. Yes I did cry over the cat poem! The prose poem about OCD was really wonderful, it put into words something that i didn't know i couldn't put into words. The endless thought spirals, the what-ifs, that OCD autism combo is lethal, and i really appreciated hearing from an author with that experience, it's something i haven't seen before (i also have ocd and autism :)
Really strong start, I didn't love the middle to end portion quite as much. Yes I did cry over the cat poem! The prose poem about OCD was really wonderful, it put into words something that i didn't know i couldn't put into words. The endless thought spirals, the what-ifs, that OCD autism combo is lethal, and i really appreciated hearing from an author with that experience, it's something i haven't seen before (i also have ocd and autism :)
November 7, 2024
"Dear Professor Emeritus X,
Every day I open the door to the testing lab and it's like spiders are skating around in my skull."
An extremely intelligent and broadly referential collection that I wish I'd enjoyed more. I never love when a poet seems to set out rules for herself in constraint poems that then didn't get followed (e.g. in the first dice poem — I expected it to be truly cyclical but it wasn't), and gimmick poems where the gimmick is very difficult to actually follow are similarly vexing for me. But I found a few standouts, like "The Doubting Disease" and "Pop Quiz", and I can appreciate Russell's voice even if it didn't resonate like I'd hoped.
Every day I open the door to the testing lab and it's like spiders are skating around in my skull."
An extremely intelligent and broadly referential collection that I wish I'd enjoyed more. I never love when a poet seems to set out rules for herself in constraint poems that then didn't get followed (e.g. in the first dice poem — I expected it to be truly cyclical but it wasn't), and gimmick poems where the gimmick is very difficult to actually follow are similarly vexing for me. But I found a few standouts, like "The Doubting Disease" and "Pop Quiz", and I can appreciate Russell's voice even if it didn't resonate like I'd hoped.
May 25, 2025
i often find it hard to describe books of poetry (regardless of how much prose they contain) so instead i shall share my favorite lines
“Today my anxiety has no face but many ears that pop open like umbrellas.”
“a year ago I was in love, & as a poet I should believe in repetition’s possibility…”
“Today my anxiety has no face but many ears that pop open like umbrellas.”
“a year ago I was in love, & as a poet I should believe in repetition’s possibility…”
July 24, 2025
There are some great cat poems in here! The inclusion of essays with the poetry just didn't feel quite cohesive to me.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews