Neither essays nor prose poems, the pieces in Empty Pool propose a new genre: the essay poem. Vivid and restless, Zapata's mind rang- es through motherhood, octopi, the Covid pandemic, photogra- phy, extinction, dogs, translation, birds, memory, recipes, reading aloud, and people who live as if they are "contestants in a sinister gossip-transmission contest organized by some telecommunications company." Each of these haunting, ephemeral, fragmentary and of- ten funny works, beautifully brought into English by Robin Myers, offers a unique and piercing amalgam of the intellectual energy and engagement of the essay and the verbal agility, silence, and ambiguity of poetry. Esther Allen