irl: poems by Danielle McMahon
Stanchion, March 2026

irl is a chapbook cast in amber, a series of poems with a nostalgic bent, framed by clips of AOL Instant Messenger conversations. It is a love story and it is also not. It’s about kinship, communication, coming of age, and finding the right person at the right time. The poems of irl are tender without ever being sentimental and capture the agony and ecstasy of being seen as a young person.

“At turns visually striking and intimately conversational, irl is a fascinating poetic exploration.”

— Audrey T. Carroll, author of The Gaia Hypothesis

“irl is what cuts through the radio static when the dead zone ends on a winding midnight drive through the middle of nowhere. It is the neon pulse of the lovesick heart and the shards of a glittering eternity. McMahon sings of the age when the small town last felt like the universe: of desolate landscapes crackling with life, and of the electricity of opening oneself to the possibility of everything.”

— Amy Jannotti, author of Angels & Insects are Creatures with Wings and editor-in-chief of Bleating Thing Magazine