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Poems that show us a world in which precedent for gender transition is everywhere if you know how to look. "I delete my history / badly," writes Estlin McPhee in this searing, witty, lyrical, and elegiac debut collection of poems about intersections of trans identity, magic, myth, family, and religion. The line refers at once to a young person's browser data that reveals an interest in gender transition; an adult's efforts to reconcile complicated relationships; a culture's campaign to erase queerness and transness from the historical record; and a religion's attempt to pretend that its own particular brand of miraculous transformation is distinct from the kind found in folktales or real life. Populated by transmasculine werewolves, homoerotic Jesuses, adolescent epiphanies, dutiful sisters, boy bands, witches, mothers who speak in tongues, and nonnas who cross the sea, this is a book in which relational and narrative continuity exists, paradoxically, as a series of ruptures with the known.
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**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.** Estlin McPhee presents their poetry collection In Your Nature, with focus on queer and trans experiences. McPhee ties in themes of folklore, lycanthropy, transformation, and religion as well as various pop culture references. I will admit that I rarely read poetry. Typically, I read maybe one book or so of poetry each year. I was drawn in first by the beautiful cover art for In Your Nature, and then by the mentioned themes. I could see myself in a lot of the pieces McPhee collected, and could appreciate their methods of incorporating both religion and folklore into the collection. I also liked the variety of structural composition methods and was grateful for the small explanations of each piece at the back of the collection. I enjoyed my time with In Your Nature and would happily recommend it to those poetry fans that can appreciate the topics included.