Supergiants

When “Supergiants,” by Kyle Flemmer crossed my path, I had picked up the poetry text and flipped through it to gain a sense of what I was getting myself into. Published on April 8, 2025 by Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, Bukrider Books, this space-themed poetry, with visuals and typographic elements, appeared like a puzzle fitting together, or not, and I was intrigued by the overarching message that this text would strive to send. 

Organized into five parts, “Modular Systems,” “Lunar Flag Assembly Kit,” “Astral Projection,” “Coronagraphic,” and “Stellar Sequence,” some segments exist text-free, deemed ‘visual sonnets,’ and I have not encountered a work like this before.“Supergiants” is an exploration of space and our historical orientations to the universe and beyond. But, what became apparent straight away was that this text was not an exploration of our relationship with space, but moreso, what our relationship with space mirrors back on us. 

Kyle Flemmer is from Calgary in Treaty 7 territory. A writer, publisher and digital media artist, Flemmer founded ‘The Blasted Tree Publishing Co.’ in 2014, publishing his first book, “Barcode Poetry,” in 2021. “Supergiants” is Flemmer’s first trade book of poetry. Having published many chapbooks and his work appearing in anthologies and exhibitions in Canada and internationally, “The Wiki of Babel,” his next poetry collection is expected to be published from University of Calgary Press. 

Flemmer is known as a digital media artist and poet. He has published several pamphlets of visual and experimental poetry, as well as earlier versions of material found in “Supergiants” before. Flemmer has pushed his audiences to contemplate the vastness of space amongst the microscopic and digital worlds of humans. Flemmer’s visual sonnets explore images of star atlases grouped around celestial coordinates. Flemmer has created a visual text of mastery of critique of our historical relationships with space as nations, some reviewers deeming the work a ‘long running joke.’

Immediately, with the first poem, “When I first looked up…,” the tone of the collection was set with melancholy, a relationship with space and the stars through time, a life cycle, of freedom to obedience. ‘When I first looked up,” Flemmer begins, there are no constructs entombing his imagination. His child's perception of the stars is raw, his orientation to space fueled by creativity and wonder. As the poet ages, imposing structures chain him. “When I looked as man/ I saw the patterns/ others wanted me to see.” The poet becomes demystified by life, “when I grew old/ my milky eyes/ beheld no galaxies.” Regrettably, the poet becomes rational, a realist, “and as I die/ the stars go out.” “Supergiants,” as an artistic and creative space of voice, is perhaps one last effort to not let the stars go out. 

I will be honest that I have cherry-picked segments of this collection that resonated with me and have not cracked the code fully in unpacking the full meaning of every section. With the visual components and textless sections, “Supergiants” will appeal to diverse readers and the knowledge they bring to the text. For me, I was surprised by the section titled “Astral Projection.” A navigation of the sacred feminine and the equation of feminine archetypes to asteroid bodies and astrological naming conventions, I found inspiration here. 

I was not expecting feminine language in this body of work. In “Astral Projection,” order and convention is established, rehabilitated, and in my opinion, that is what our patriarchal societies need when reclaiming and negotiating healing. We encounter Themis, “GODDESS OF ORDER PUTTING ALL IN ITS PLACE.” The use of upper case throughout this section, perhaps a Munsch scream. The poet urges that something needs to change. Tapping into the feminine can do that. We can reclaim our origins, the matriarch, she of “the outer belt.” “Her sublimated surface ice the likely source of earth’s first water,” Flemmer tells her story while fusing her within the core of his work. He employs powerful language that positions the organic and natural as an elemental power. She, “elliptic amniotic elixir” or she, “the first to embrace two moons.” Flemmer, weaving in poetry for the female members of his family, lets us not forget our collective identity. “Mother suffers for her children at the hands of warlike men.” And, this suffering has been occurring for millenia. As long as paradigms of power remain the same, our orientation to and relationship with space only mirrors the atrocities committed on home soil. 

Thank you to Kyle Flemmer, Bukrider Books and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review!