J. Taylor Bell’s first chapbook, Hello Cruel World, solicits the reader’s undying companionship while navigating late capitalist dystopia. These poems are a downward-facing dogma set in a world catching more on fire each day; to the blaze, they offer neither gasoline nor water. Instead, they are an elegy to barely getting by, against the arrogance of solutions, and they are extremely in favor of seeking solidarity in Outback Steakhouse’s famed Bloomin’ Onion dish.