As soon as I came across this anthology and its haunting cover I knew I had to pick it up. As soon as I realized that the title of this anthology (and the journal it originated from) came from a quote from Gloria Anzaldúa, I knew I’d made the right choice. The poems in thisRead More
Mars Reviews “My Mother Says Drums Are For Boys: True Stories for Gender Rebels” by Rae Theodore
In this short autobiographical essay and poetry collection, Rae Theodore offers a frank and panoramic perspective on growing up butch. The titular term “gender rebel” is entirely accurate here as Theodore recalls a childhood and young adulthood where classic femininity chafed. All the outer accoutrements of fashion and stature were as complicated to her asRead More
Karoliina reviews Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism by Danielle Barnhart and Iris Mahan
This poetry collection, edited by Daniella Barnhart and Iris Mahan, opens with Denice Frohman’s poem ’a woman’s place’, and the first lines set the scene for the whole collection: i heard a woman becomes herself the first time she speaks without permission then, every word out of her mouth a riot The collection is hugeRead More
Marthese reviews The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins
”Is there such a thing as promiscuous love, or dies it only apply to sex?” The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins is a 500+ page book, written almost entirely in poetry form. It was such an intense read! It leaves an impression; I couldn’t help not think about it when I was not reading it.Read More
Julie Thompson reviews Don’t Date a Writer by Maj al-Yasa
Inspired by a summer spent swirling between Germany, Spain, and Iowa City, Iowa, poet Maj al-Yasa explores the vagaries of love. This poetry collection is organized as a journey in four parts: Unrequited Love (I don’t understand); Requited Love (why you loved me once); Loss (and then let me go.); Vices (Asshole). Or, read moreRead More
Kalyanii reviews Pansy by Andrea Gibson
There are literary influences whose work has a way of taking us back to a time when we were enlivened, emboldened and perpetually inspired. Then, there are those who nudge—or rather kick—our ass forward, encouraging us to seize the opportunity to wake up, give back and believe in something greater than that for whichRead More
Bessie reviews The Red Parts and Jane by Maggie Nelson
Nelson is a wonderful writer, whose memoir/queer theory explosion The Argonauts was probably the best book I read last year. It got me interested in checking out some of her earlier work, The Red Parts and Jane, which are very different from The Argonauts, and from each other, but both exceptional books. I wasn’t sureRead More
Julie Thompson reviews You're The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White
Arisa White’s newest poetry collection, You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, plumbs the depths of what it means to exist in the world as queer, female, a person of color, and beyond. She undresses a multitude of topics, including race, family, and relationships. The collection offers tender, tumultuous, and light moments. In the introduction,Read More
Danika reviews Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
I don’t typically read poetry, and this was a collection that made me realize what a mistake that is. Bodymap is about Piepzna-Samarasinha’s life as a queer disabled femme of colour. It’s political, but it’s politics rooted in everyday experiences of injustice and survival, not abstract theorizing. Although her poetry experiments with style, they all are accessible andRead More
Danika reviews Where the Words End and My Body Begins by Amber Dawn
Where the Words End and My Body Begins is a collection of glosa poems, which means, in part, that each poem incorporates four sequential lines from another poem. What makes this collection especially interesting is Amber Dawn’s selections: each poet glossed “find[s] themselves somewhere along the queer, gender-creative, feminism and/or survivor spectrum.” Although each poetRead More