“[A] magnificently effective science-fictional novella in verse.”

STEPHANIE BURT, The Boston Globe

“Fischer’s postapocalyptic universe offers a terrifying glimpse into a future in which the world and the words we use to describe it are all in ruins.”

RYO YAMAGUCHI, The Poetry Foundation

“B.K. Fischer’s strikingly imaginative, wry yet tragic novella-in-verse tells the story of a contemporary Noah’s Ark set on a container ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a refuge from a world that’s been submerged…. Fischer delivers exquisitely layered word-machines, rich in overlapping textures of allusion and noise. This book is a wonder, and now is the moment we need it most.”

MONICA FERRELL, author of You Darling Thing

“Ceive could not be more timely. In a loose translation of the flood myth, Fischer transports her characters from a drowning world, conceivably but without certainty, to dry land via freight containers off the North American coast. Drawing from The Seafarer, Timothy Morton, Joan Miró, ancient myth, Hélène Cixous, and the deepest well of linguistic brilliance I’ve ever encountered, Fischer offers a future of possibility but no promise.”

ABY KAUPANG, author of NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified)

A poetic retelling of Noah’s Ark set in the near future, Ceive is a novella-in-verse that recounts a post-apocalyptic journey aboard a container ship.

Available from
BOA Editions

Excerpt from "Preconceive"

Val, don’t forget about
Type-one conditionality,
a habitual occurrence: if

it rains heavily, the valley
floods. Val, don’t deny
type-two conditionality,

a likely occurrence: if it
rains heavily, the valley
will flood. Don’t be sur–

prized if it turns out to be
type-three conditionality,
hypotheticals: if

the whole world flooded,
I would build an ark. Val,
you’ve known all along

God regretted he made
human beings on the earth
and was deeply troubled.

If you leave here now
you will never know
how high the water gets.

As the waters increase
they will bear up the ark
and the waters prevail.