weirdgender

this is so powerful and beautiful, thank you for sharing 

Every one of these poems filled me with feelings and questions and inspired me, sending me off on a poetry-writing journey of my own. 

"nature is just / the body / without the fear. "

WOW!!!

"weirdgender" [stylized  w̴̥͍̞͑́͝e̶̤̰͗ͅi̴̭̎r̴̹̾̇d̵̻̒ģ̴̳̐́ë̸͎̮̣́͐͝n̸͈̭͌͒͛d̴̦̙͌͠ͅḛ̴͈̺̓̿̚r̶̪̅̕̚͜    ]  by Maui (twitter/blog/Study Break Mag). weirdgender is about "Black lesbianism and messy gender.". I'd also like to thank Maui personally for submitting something as they're someone I reached out to specifically when I heard they wanted to revise their chapbook; I'm really happy that they did! The poems are very much about exactly what's advertised. They're presented sometimes without line breaks, all as one rambling aspect together. Other times they're all over the place, or organized by chaos, and other times still as a visual graphic. A lot of the poetry challenges the fact that what most people call or consider "trans culture" or "trans poetry" is actually more likely "white trans culture" and "white trans poetry". I can't and wouldn't ever claim to know or understand the way that whiteness and how much it controls what everyone learns and thinks about transness (and gender in general) affects trans people of color. What matters is taking the responsibility in working against perpetuating white trans "common experiences" as universal or neutral engagements with gender. Promoting, supporting, boosting, funding, and centering collections such as weirdgender is an essential step in that work as well.

This is a collection that is honest about the author's thoughts, experiences, frustrations, and interactions with gender. The poem on page 7 looks amazing, and should be a poster in my opinion. The alliteration of 4 words at the end of the space-less ramble poems is a small intentional detail that speaks to the care in Maui's craft. It also contains a highly significant narrative about nonbinary lesbianism often missing from the conversation. How many of us who transition away from cis femininity or who transition towards androgyny (nonbinary lesbians in general, though of course different marginalizations inform different experiences in this varied group as well) often feel we have to be trans men before anything else; because it's the only way to make sense of our love for women. Or that, well of course you couldn't be straight, so if you're a man you have to be a gay man. Maybe you end up trying to be every single letter in the acronym because you're scared of being the L and what it might make everyone think of you. A lot of people think not being into men is regressive or exclusionary. This chapbook tells the truth, that many nonbinary lesbians (told from one option of transition, but it can happen regardless of transitional direction or assigned gender) run away from that, but when they accept it they finally feel at home. It's not always about having a "complicated relationship with womanhood", because non-cis lesbianism goes a lot further than having to "restrict [ourselves] to boxes" (in Maui's words).

The poem on page 10 looks even better than the poem on page 7. It's a short collection but it holds such an un-listened to voice that even in that short while, the impact of it is stronger than what coming home with an assortment of zines by only white 'liberal' trans activists could probably ever give you; even cumulatively. It's a fantastic book, and I look forward both to more writing from Maui in the future, and hopefully someday the ability to support their writing in physical print.

"but when I stopped pretending to like hockey and started being myself it all fell apart and oh, the freedom in losing it all! i shed masculinity and danced and danced out of spring and into summer days of kissing brown nipples in the park and intertwined brown hands and black women loving black women under an almost black night sky and I thought to myself: how did I ever pretend to like men?"