Thom Eichelberger-Young's newest collection asks us to look into the heart of the beast--at how our political and cultural institutions have failed us, at the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, at the increasingly omnipresent surveillance of the state, of that state's violence against marginalized groups. Across a series of insightful and introspective lyric essays, Ointment Weather reveals itself as a work deeply invested in the present, in everything happening now in front of our eyes. If we cannot look into the current moment, into the imperial core, and see these oppressive systems for what they are, then how can we begin to move towards a better future?