Close to Something Beautiful

Villa’s electric chapbook Close to Something Beautiful is the real deal. It is an intimate unfolding of what it means to search for connection in a world that values indifference over tenderness, distraction over conviction. Villa’s poems take a microscope to human interactions, to the strangeness and beauty of colliding with another—”he smelled like fast food / he asked if I was comfortable / I thought he must have sisters / to ask a question like that.” Reading Close to Something Beautiful feels less like reading and more like sharing secrets over a few stiff drinks, hoping that last call never arrives. This book is proof that love multiplies the more you give it away. Villa’s poems teach us that bravery can be found everywhere—in loneliness, confusion, nature, desire, and last but not least, transformation.