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I want to start by saying
Samuel Ace’s I want to start by saying is a constellation of memory, personal and place-based histories, dailiness, repetition, art-making, and desire. Ace’s insistent titular phrase acts as drone and anchor—invocation and prayer—propelling the peripatetic narrator from Cleveland to New York to Tucson, western Massachusetts to Atlanta and back again, line by line. Part essay, part memoir, and part collage, Ace explores the difficulties of romance, childhood, betrayal, and writing, establishing each sentence as a location to begin anew; to utter, accrete, and break again.
Praise for I want to start by saying:
“This collection is an inventive, original exploration of eros, creative process, and trans and queer geographies of family and home… Hello to a new cult classic.” —Oliver Baez Bendorf
“Ace is a treasure, a true one-of-one—I’ll follow his ear anywhere.” —Kaveh Akbar
“Ace’s simmering, hesitant, protective attention works to bear the weight of secrets passed unsaid.” —Sarah Minor
“Sam Ace takes on the phrase “I want to start” as metronome that turns daily reflections into mediations on longing and loss, memory and pleasure, luck, absence, and value… this book is trans at its core. It is homey, heartfelt, and utterly beautiful.” —Emerson Whitney
“This book is an incantation for us to sing on the road to God.” —Rebecca Brown
Bio: Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author most recently of Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish), Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash. (Belladonna* Germinal Texts), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton (Chax). Ace is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a repeat finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series.
Praise for I want to start by saying:
“This collection is an inventive, original exploration of eros, creative process, and trans and queer geographies of family and home… Hello to a new cult classic.” —Oliver Baez Bendorf
“Ace is a treasure, a true one-of-one—I’ll follow his ear anywhere.” —Kaveh Akbar
“Ace’s simmering, hesitant, protective attention works to bear the weight of secrets passed unsaid.” —Sarah Minor
“Sam Ace takes on the phrase “I want to start” as metronome that turns daily reflections into mediations on longing and loss, memory and pleasure, luck, absence, and value… this book is trans at its core. It is homey, heartfelt, and utterly beautiful.” —Emerson Whitney
“This book is an incantation for us to sing on the road to God.” —Rebecca Brown
Bio: Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author most recently of Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish), Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash. (Belladonna* Germinal Texts), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton (Chax). Ace is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a repeat finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series.
160 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2024
About the author
Samuel Ace
12 books13 followersSamuel Ace (formerly Linda Smukler) is a trans and genderqueer author of three collections of poetry: Normal Sex, Home in three days. Don’t wash., and most recently Stealth, with poet Maureen Seaton. He is also a visual artist and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, a two-time finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and the National Poetry Series, winner of the Astraea Lesbian Writer’s Fund Prize in Poetry, The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry. His work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in or is forthcoming from Poetry, Aufgabe, Fence, The Atlas Review, Black Clock, Mandorla, Versal, The Collagist, Posit, Vinyl, Troubling the Line: Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Best American Experimental Poetry 2016, and many other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 6, 2026
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Goodreads Review
I want to start by saying is an ambitious, timely, and intellectually rich collection that captures one of the defining dynamics of personal memory and queer geographies through an impressively interdisciplinary lens. Rather than presenting individual history, trans identity, and geographic displacement solely as isolated poetic experiences, this volume reveals them as profound social, political, cultural, environmental, and historical turning points whose consequences continue to shape our world.
One of the collection's greatest strengths is its breadth of perspectives. By bringing together the peripatetic journey from Cleveland to New York to Tucson with deep explorations of romance, childhood, betrayal, and the creative process, Samuel Ace demonstrates that understanding the landscapes of identity requires far more than surface-level narrative alone. Questions of inequality, governance, labor, education, technology, race, public health, economics, community resilience, and global interconnectedness emerge as inseparable parts of the larger story.
What makes this reader particularly valuable is its commitment to complexity. The text resists simplistic healing narratives and instead encourages readers to grapple with the many contradictions of longing, loss, and repetition, exposing both systemic vulnerabilities in institutional support structures and remarkable examples of human adaptability, artistic reckoning, and emotional solidarity. The result is a collection that informs while also inviting thoughtful reflection.
The structural curation is excellent, allowing macro geographic shifts and deeply intimate poetic incantations to complement one another rather than compete. Each sentence adds another dimension to understanding how daily reflections and the weight of unspoken secrets reshape identity, relationships, and everyday life, creating a cohesive volume despite the wide range of heavy topics.
Equally impressive is the accessibility of the scholarship within the poetry and prose. While intellectually rigorous and deeply rooted in the trans and queer experience, the writing remains engaging and approachable, making the collection valuable not only for literary researchers and students of cross-cultural creative writing but also for general readers seeking a deeper understanding of our era's complex psychological and sociological landscapes.
Perhaps most importantly, I want to start by saying reminds us that the burdens of memory and desire are not simply private emergencies but historical events that reflect and transform modern society. By preserving these perspectives, the book becomes both an essential academic resource for contemporary poetry studies and a lasting record of an era that future generations will continue to study to find closure beneath the weight of the past.
Insightful, comprehensive, and deeply thought-provoking, this collection deserves a place among the most important interdisciplinary works examining the global legacy of queer geographies, artistic process, and personal histories.
Goodreads Review
I want to start by saying is an ambitious, timely, and intellectually rich collection that captures one of the defining dynamics of personal memory and queer geographies through an impressively interdisciplinary lens. Rather than presenting individual history, trans identity, and geographic displacement solely as isolated poetic experiences, this volume reveals them as profound social, political, cultural, environmental, and historical turning points whose consequences continue to shape our world.
One of the collection's greatest strengths is its breadth of perspectives. By bringing together the peripatetic journey from Cleveland to New York to Tucson with deep explorations of romance, childhood, betrayal, and the creative process, Samuel Ace demonstrates that understanding the landscapes of identity requires far more than surface-level narrative alone. Questions of inequality, governance, labor, education, technology, race, public health, economics, community resilience, and global interconnectedness emerge as inseparable parts of the larger story.
What makes this reader particularly valuable is its commitment to complexity. The text resists simplistic healing narratives and instead encourages readers to grapple with the many contradictions of longing, loss, and repetition, exposing both systemic vulnerabilities in institutional support structures and remarkable examples of human adaptability, artistic reckoning, and emotional solidarity. The result is a collection that informs while also inviting thoughtful reflection.
The structural curation is excellent, allowing macro geographic shifts and deeply intimate poetic incantations to complement one another rather than compete. Each sentence adds another dimension to understanding how daily reflections and the weight of unspoken secrets reshape identity, relationships, and everyday life, creating a cohesive volume despite the wide range of heavy topics.
Equally impressive is the accessibility of the scholarship within the poetry and prose. While intellectually rigorous and deeply rooted in the trans and queer experience, the writing remains engaging and approachable, making the collection valuable not only for literary researchers and students of cross-cultural creative writing but also for general readers seeking a deeper understanding of our era's complex psychological and sociological landscapes.
Perhaps most importantly, I want to start by saying reminds us that the burdens of memory and desire are not simply private emergencies but historical events that reflect and transform modern society. By preserving these perspectives, the book becomes both an essential academic resource for contemporary poetry studies and a lasting record of an era that future generations will continue to study to find closure beneath the weight of the past.
Insightful, comprehensive, and deeply thought-provoking, this collection deserves a place among the most important interdisciplinary works examining the global legacy of queer geographies, artistic process, and personal histories.
January 24, 2026
The best use of anaphora in an age. A truly excellent contemporary epic. Samuel Ace kills in this book!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews