Booklife Review

“I offer this bare poem to your body,” the Sao-Paulo-based poet Tiely writes in “Erratic Writing,” one of the standout celebrations and explorations of “non-normative erotic dimensions” (as per Erica Malunguinho’s preface) offered in this vital, uplifting incantatory collection of trans Black erotic poetry. The poems are bare, and the bodies are, too, stripped not just of clothing but often of specific gender identity, as Tiely’s narrators lick, probe, explore, and cheer their lovers’ “trenches,” “chalices,” and “igneous black skin.” This inclusive generality doesn’t diminish the verses’ erotic charge, especially as Tiely (and translators Bruna Barros and Jess Oliveira) emphasize an attentive, explorative intimacy and intense feelings of reprieve, connection, and delicious buildup.

In “Rivers,” a vivid ode that connects physical pleasure and release with the spiritual, Tiely writes, “you are a river that / in naughty fluency /runs through my body.” That poem ends with Tiely linking that river’s mouth with the “soul.” Tiely’s frequent invocation of mouths, tongues, and lips—all “traveling through curves, groin, stretch marks, desire”—is enticing and also a reminder for readers that these words have even greater life shared, out loud, off the page, where they can guide and inspire and offer license—Transpoethicalbody, in every sense, belongs in the oral tradition.

Tiely writes in Brazilian Portugese, and a brief essay from the translators illuminates some of the challenges of their own intimate art. It’s urgent reading, offering not just clarity about Tiely’s intentions but new ways to think about the ways our cultures teach us to understand our bodies. They note that the word for “spider” (“aranha”) is also a slang term for “vulva,” which “turns this organ so often placed as passive into a many-legged mysterious predator.” Their guidance on what readers can make of Tiely’s use of the phrase “sea of spiders,” then, is inspired. These vibrant, fluid, and accessible poems stand as a rousing and gorgeous affirmation of the act of loving.

Takeaway: Rousing, gorgeous poems of Black trans love.

Comparable Titles: Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel’s We Want It All, Jasmine Mans’s Black Girl, Call Home.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A