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In the Middle of a Better World: Poems
Not yet published
Expected 3 Feb 26What do we risk by living our most authentic lives? More importantly, what do we gain?
In the Middle of a Better World is a queer guide to love and identity, a collection both formally inventive and infused with a bright, shimmering imagination. The speaker of these poems isn’t afraid to dream, to be seen, to speak “the tender language.” Part elegy, part battle cry, this astonishing new collection by poet Grant Chemidlin is unabashedly joyous in its exploration of desire, human connection, and community—those we’re born into and those we build ourselves.
In the Middle of a Better World is a queer guide to love and identity, a collection both formally inventive and infused with a bright, shimmering imagination. The speaker of these poems isn’t afraid to dream, to be seen, to speak “the tender language.” Part elegy, part battle cry, this astonishing new collection by poet Grant Chemidlin is unabashedly joyous in its exploration of desire, human connection, and community—those we’re born into and those we build ourselves.
112 pages, Paperback
Expected publication February 3, 2026
84 people want to read
About the author
Grant Chemidlin
4 books95 followersGrant Chemidlin is the author of What We Lost in the Swamp (Central Avenue Poetry, 2023), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His newest collection, In the Middle of a Better World, will be published by Central Avenue Poetry in February 2026. Recent poems can be found in The Los Angeles Review, Palette Poetry, Laurel Review, Quarterly West, and the Academy of American Poets, among others. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband and cat.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 27, 2025
This is my favorite poetry collection from my favorite poet. His evolution is a sight to behold. The way this book captures the complicated queer experience — from shame and longing and anger and heartbreak to hope and joy and sensuality and faggotry — takes experiences I thought were singular and broadens them to feel inclusive and normal. The fag poems struck me; the form added another layer of storytelling to the already beautiful language…we erase ourselves until we decide to stand in our truth. It’s a collection that deepens with each reading and I can’t wait to explore every line for new meanings and understandings. Also, he’s hot???
November 4, 2025
4.25/5
Some of the most clever wordplay I’ve ever seen in a poetry anthology
Some of the most clever wordplay I’ve ever seen in a poetry anthology
November 3, 2025
Publication Date: 3rd February 2026
As this is a collection of poems predominantly focusing on queer love, I understand that I am not necessarily the target audience. Therefore, a deep personal connection to these poems was absent for me. However, this book was poignant, with each poem blooming with emotion and thought-provoking metaphors dotted throughout. The realities of genuine, reciprocated love — whether that be romantic love, or the love of family and friends — was demonstrated in a very sweet way, particularly the safe and comforting environment being surrounded by love creates.
However, overall I found the book decent at best. There wasn't one poem that I thought was amazing, and I was also rather taken aback by the poems detailing sexual exploration in an unexpectedly explicit way. Now, I am not a prude or against explicit content in books in the slightest. However, I think my issue with it was that I was not expecting it at all, let alone in somewhat graphic detail, so found it quite jarring and felt that it took away from some of the tenderness. However, I imagine that these poems could potentially be rather affirming and relatable to people who have been questioning their sexuality.
Love is fundamentally a dance of many emotions, and as was this poetry collection. However, unfortunately this book was not my kind of dance.
Thank you to NetGalley, Grant Chemidlin and Central Avenue Publishing for gifting this eBook in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
❀ Tia ❀
As this is a collection of poems predominantly focusing on queer love, I understand that I am not necessarily the target audience. Therefore, a deep personal connection to these poems was absent for me. However, this book was poignant, with each poem blooming with emotion and thought-provoking metaphors dotted throughout. The realities of genuine, reciprocated love — whether that be romantic love, or the love of family and friends — was demonstrated in a very sweet way, particularly the safe and comforting environment being surrounded by love creates.
However, overall I found the book decent at best. There wasn't one poem that I thought was amazing, and I was also rather taken aback by the poems detailing sexual exploration in an unexpectedly explicit way. Now, I am not a prude or against explicit content in books in the slightest. However, I think my issue with it was that I was not expecting it at all, let alone in somewhat graphic detail, so found it quite jarring and felt that it took away from some of the tenderness. However, I imagine that these poems could potentially be rather affirming and relatable to people who have been questioning their sexuality.
Love is fundamentally a dance of many emotions, and as was this poetry collection. However, unfortunately this book was not my kind of dance.
Thank you to NetGalley, Grant Chemidlin and Central Avenue Publishing for gifting this eBook in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
❀ Tia ❀
November 12, 2025
I don’t read much poetry, but this book reminded me why I should. The poems are clear, emotional, and easy to connect with and there’s no need to overthink them.
Chemidlin writes about love, queerness, shame, and everyday life in a way that feels honest and unforced. Some poems are funny, others quite sad, but all of them feel personal. My favourite was “Airbnb” — a quiet, nostalgic piece about friendship, connection, and being fully present in a fleeting moment.
By the end, I just felt quiet and grateful. This book makes poetry feel less like homework and more like being let in on someone’s life.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Chemidlin writes about love, queerness, shame, and everyday life in a way that feels honest and unforced. Some poems are funny, others quite sad, but all of them feel personal. My favourite was “Airbnb” — a quiet, nostalgic piece about friendship, connection, and being fully present in a fleeting moment.
By the end, I just felt quiet and grateful. This book makes poetry feel less like homework and more like being let in on someone’s life.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
September 20, 2025
This collection of poems by debut author Grant Chemidlin truly captures the joy and safety of genuine love—and not just love between partners, but between parents and children. As a deeply in love woman engaged to be married and as a mother to a teenaged son who is still figuring himself out, I felt particularly drawn to “Table Talk,” “At the Protest, I List the Consequences of Coming Out,” “Tiny Pants,” “As the City Burned,” “A Summer Camp Wedding,” and “First Time We’ve Seen Her Since the Wedding.” You will catch yourself smiling sweetly as you take in this sweet collection.
October 16, 2025
Firstly, know I’m not a poetry person and I’m very picky. I love poetry that is super well themed and queer, and this was only one of those things. I picked this up loving the cover and concept but was underwhelmed by the writing and thought some of the formatting was.. tumbler edgy and cringe.
The works I enjoyed surrounded the authors relationship with his father and the few poems focused on queer love! Unfortunately that was only about 15% and the rest was just very okay. I would recommend this to other who enjoy poetry but this wasn’t for me. Thank you Netgally for providing me with an arc!
The works I enjoyed surrounded the authors relationship with his father and the few poems focused on queer love! Unfortunately that was only about 15% and the rest was just very okay. I would recommend this to other who enjoy poetry but this wasn’t for me. Thank you Netgally for providing me with an arc!
October 23, 2025
Thank you Central Avenue Publishing for the chance to read and review this collection!
The Homosexual Agenda and Reflex are easily my favourite poems in this collection by Grant Chemidlin. After all, love, is political, it cannot be anything but. Whether you’re a brown woman desperate for the right to choose a partner and have privacy with said partner, a Black woman trying to keep her partner out of the prison-industrial complex, or a queer person simply wanting to love and marry without risking their life; desire is inseparable from politics.
Which is to say that even a collection that claims to be unabashedly joyous is steeped in anxiety. You don’t sense that anxiety immediately; ‘The Beginning of Love’, the first poem of the book features cotton candy clouds.
"How did you do that? I said.
I don’t know, he said. I was just hungry."
This hunger that stems from joy and desire is a palpable force in the collection; all that you can do when you just don’t need to think about the queerness of it all. That this love needs to “hide behind/ the bushes. The trees,/ who see no deviance, offer/ their trunks for cover.”
‘Dark Sunday’ that ends the collection is also a great example of moments of uncertainty.
"I pull your body over me
like a roof, mistake
your drumming heart
for rain."
For a moment, and just a moment, on this rainy Sunday, is the mistake the chosen lover?
Other pieces that stood out to me were ‘The Prayers of Mice’ and ‘In the Hour of Want’; animals and the elements of nature trying fruitlessly to bring you closer to happiness.
And yet, Grant Chemidlin, could have also allowed this collection some more time to develop. Poems like “The Mysterious Missing Story” are good conceptually, but slightly cheesy. They’ll do very well on insta, which isn’t an insult, but they don’t make sense for the book the poet is trying to publish. Because of course, instagram and tiktok are what got the author here; so how much can they deviate from the style that got them here? You just have to take a look at the marketing plan on NetGalley!
My other main criticism of this book is that I’m not sure how inventive this collection is; does removing the letters f, a, and, g from all the poems titled “F A G” really make it different or just hard to read when you’d get the same impact while just greying them out slightly? Especially when some of the other poems do just the same.
Which is not to say that the collection doesn’t work; I am leaving it 3.5 stars. It works best when Grant Chemidlin leaves insta and TikTok behind to product mature, authentic pieces; works that are full of hunger, where joy and love, even with the politics that accompany them, are enough.
The Homosexual Agenda and Reflex are easily my favourite poems in this collection by Grant Chemidlin. After all, love, is political, it cannot be anything but. Whether you’re a brown woman desperate for the right to choose a partner and have privacy with said partner, a Black woman trying to keep her partner out of the prison-industrial complex, or a queer person simply wanting to love and marry without risking their life; desire is inseparable from politics.
Which is to say that even a collection that claims to be unabashedly joyous is steeped in anxiety. You don’t sense that anxiety immediately; ‘The Beginning of Love’, the first poem of the book features cotton candy clouds.
"How did you do that? I said.
I don’t know, he said. I was just hungry."
This hunger that stems from joy and desire is a palpable force in the collection; all that you can do when you just don’t need to think about the queerness of it all. That this love needs to “hide behind/ the bushes. The trees,/ who see no deviance, offer/ their trunks for cover.”
‘Dark Sunday’ that ends the collection is also a great example of moments of uncertainty.
"I pull your body over me
like a roof, mistake
your drumming heart
for rain."
For a moment, and just a moment, on this rainy Sunday, is the mistake the chosen lover?
Other pieces that stood out to me were ‘The Prayers of Mice’ and ‘In the Hour of Want’; animals and the elements of nature trying fruitlessly to bring you closer to happiness.
And yet, Grant Chemidlin, could have also allowed this collection some more time to develop. Poems like “The Mysterious Missing Story” are good conceptually, but slightly cheesy. They’ll do very well on insta, which isn’t an insult, but they don’t make sense for the book the poet is trying to publish. Because of course, instagram and tiktok are what got the author here; so how much can they deviate from the style that got them here? You just have to take a look at the marketing plan on NetGalley!
My other main criticism of this book is that I’m not sure how inventive this collection is; does removing the letters f, a, and, g from all the poems titled “F A G” really make it different or just hard to read when you’d get the same impact while just greying them out slightly? Especially when some of the other poems do just the same.
Which is not to say that the collection doesn’t work; I am leaving it 3.5 stars. It works best when Grant Chemidlin leaves insta and TikTok behind to product mature, authentic pieces; works that are full of hunger, where joy and love, even with the politics that accompany them, are enough.
November 9, 2025
"Which me counts as memory?
Which lie was the real I?"
2.5 stars at best
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC of this poetry collection. I was genuinely excited to receive it, as I greatly enjoy reading poetry, especially when it’s queer. However, this particular collection wasn’t the right fit for me. I found myself disliking the narrative style of most of the poems; if the intent was to tell a story, I would have preferred it in the form of a novel or short story instead. I also didn’t enjoy the use of the letters “f-a-g” being omitted or greyed out in some poems. While I understand the artistic reasoning behind this choice, it ultimately felt more distracting than impactful. Several poems relied heavily on repetition, repeating the same line over and over, and after encountering this technique a second time, it lost its effect. Overall, I didn’t find much that felt innovative in this collection, and the narrative poems occasionally came across as a series of disjointed thoughts or phrases strung together in hopes of forming coherence, which, unfortunately, didn’t quite succeed. That said, there were moments, ideas, and emotions that resonated with me to some extent, and I did underline a few lines that I wanted to keep with me. I also thoroughly enjoyed how the author played with language and homonyms (sic!). Still, as a whole, this collection simply wasn’t for me, I’m afraid.
Which lie was the real I?"
2.5 stars at best
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC of this poetry collection. I was genuinely excited to receive it, as I greatly enjoy reading poetry, especially when it’s queer. However, this particular collection wasn’t the right fit for me. I found myself disliking the narrative style of most of the poems; if the intent was to tell a story, I would have preferred it in the form of a novel or short story instead. I also didn’t enjoy the use of the letters “f-a-g” being omitted or greyed out in some poems. While I understand the artistic reasoning behind this choice, it ultimately felt more distracting than impactful. Several poems relied heavily on repetition, repeating the same line over and over, and after encountering this technique a second time, it lost its effect. Overall, I didn’t find much that felt innovative in this collection, and the narrative poems occasionally came across as a series of disjointed thoughts or phrases strung together in hopes of forming coherence, which, unfortunately, didn’t quite succeed. That said, there were moments, ideas, and emotions that resonated with me to some extent, and I did underline a few lines that I wanted to keep with me. I also thoroughly enjoyed how the author played with language and homonyms (sic!). Still, as a whole, this collection simply wasn’t for me, I’m afraid.
November 13, 2025
When was the last time I read a poetry collection? Too long, and I’m glad I at last broke this cycle with this book. This is Grant Chemidlin’s third chapbook, and my first time reading his work.
His poems come across like someone who’s at last grown into his queerness. Now he begins the work of a lifetime: figuring out how to live now he knows who he is. He writes about choosing love and hope despite how the world makes that harder by the minute. Tender yet unflinching.
Each piece varies in length, composition, theme and formatting, yet the spirit remains the same: a bittersweet longing laced through beautiful imagery.
Because really, what’s life without longing? Doing without desire? Contentment without conflict? Everything exists in duality, including the search for a better world.
I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.
His poems come across like someone who’s at last grown into his queerness. Now he begins the work of a lifetime: figuring out how to live now he knows who he is. He writes about choosing love and hope despite how the world makes that harder by the minute. Tender yet unflinching.
Each piece varies in length, composition, theme and formatting, yet the spirit remains the same: a bittersweet longing laced through beautiful imagery.
Because really, what’s life without longing? Doing without desire? Contentment without conflict? Everything exists in duality, including the search for a better world.
I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.
October 27, 2025
Admittedly, poetry is pretty hit or miss for me. Almost every poetry collection ends up being a mixed bag, and this was no exception.
Many of the works felt original and inventive. In particular I like the multiple sets of very narrative poetry that excluded F A and G, showcasing the loss of understanding in a story when removing the queerness from it, as well as showcasing how removing the queerness from the story leads to incomprehensibly in the narrative.
Some of the poems, however, feel kinda basic. I wouldn't be able to point them out in a line up against various other queer poems I've read on Tumblr over years.
The craft is definitely here. If I was arranging this there would have been half as many works, but that's not bad for a collection.
(i received a free copy for review)
Many of the works felt original and inventive. In particular I like the multiple sets of very narrative poetry that excluded F A and G, showcasing the loss of understanding in a story when removing the queerness from it, as well as showcasing how removing the queerness from the story leads to incomprehensibly in the narrative.
Some of the poems, however, feel kinda basic. I wouldn't be able to point them out in a line up against various other queer poems I've read on Tumblr over years.
The craft is definitely here. If I was arranging this there would have been half as many works, but that's not bad for a collection.
(i received a free copy for review)
November 13, 2025
I don’t normally read or seek out poetry but I found this book to be incredibly moving and accessible. It’s a fun mix of beautiful, thought provoking, and sometimes silly poems. Some of the poems challenged my perspective on masculinity, others offered an intimate glimpse into the author’s coming of age and experience coming into his sexuality. I’ll be checking out more of this author’s work, and will probably start reading more poetry because of him.
October 22, 2025
WOW! Grant's writing is breathtaking. His metaphors are fresh and clever while wrapped up in precise structure. If you are queer you will feel the ache inside each poem, and if you are not, you will witness what it is like to live inside our bodies. This is a must-read!
November 1, 2025
2.5/5, full review to come.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews