Transgenesis by Ava Nathaniel Winter Paperback Book 9781639550043

An excavatory collection of poems tracing the connections between Jewish transfemininity queer desire and cultural historiesSelected by Sean Hill for the National Poetry Series this collection is a scrupulous chronicle of individual and cultural knowledge In an exceptional debut Ava Nathaniel Winter challenges our concepts of the beautiful and the sacred delving not only into the historically marginalized but also into the chilling subconscious of supremacy quotLet me be clear from this beginningquot she writes amp8220What I mean by beauty is a terror I have fled from into languageamp8221Winter writes with a documentariansamp160attention a poetamp8217s resonance amp8220Iamp8217m tryingamp8221 she admits amp8220to find language for what we do to one anotheramp8221 From amp321amp243oacutedamp378 Poland to predominantly white suburban America from the space shared by queer lovers to antique cabinets filled with Nazi memorabilia from Talmudic depictions of genderqueer rabbis to archival lynching photos she regards the tender and the difficult with equal gravity commemorates the fraught gift of survivalAt the heart of this collectiondespite its moments of profound darknessamp8212is a new hardwon holiness The amp8220earthy aroma of ryeamp8221 calling up a motheramp8217s baking her motheramp8217s hers Belief in a loveramp8217s lavishing A chosen future one where we are amp8220reader sibling sisteramp8221amp160If Transgenesis began in fear of beauty where it lands is this...