Differential Diagnosis

by Sarah Cavar

Undoing traditional psychiatric narratives in this innovative and bold first collection.

Drawing from queer, trans, disabled, and Mad poetic traditions, Differential Diagnosis introduces a deeply entangled transMad approach, investigating ways of knowing, loving, and living not legible to the normative eye. This collection challenges the architecture of institutional psychiatry and its popular “wellness” analogues, offering instead a counternarrative of forced institutionalization, disorderly embodiment, and transMad self-determination.

At once jarring and joyful, Differential Diagnosis interrogates psychiatric power and locates capacities for disabled and/or transMad resistance in the oblique, the speculative, and the “nonsensical.” Cavar’s inventive full-length debut defamiliarizes cis, sane, abled existence through linguistic play and speculative imagery, offering Madness not only as poetic content, but also as craft technique and, ultimately, as a new way of being in the normative world.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2026

About the author

Cavar [sarah] (they/them) is the author of FAILURE TO COMPLY (featherproof books, 2024) and DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS (Northwestern University Press, 2026).

Cavar holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and Science & Technology Studies at the University of California: Davis, and holds a B.A. in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College. They teach at Grand Valley State University and are interested in the politics of queercrip / transMad knowledge production.

Reviews

[Ally Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me stop what I was doing to write a poem, which is the greatest gift a book can give.

[I. Merey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our society is demarcated by all manners of inner and outer fences, walls, boxes, prisons and cages, and Differential Diagnosis is interested in slipping into and busting them all up. The form of restriction is most often unnamed, but it is always hovering, ominously, reflected in the eyes of doctors, parents, persons of authority, the desires of those who would use our bodies for this thing or that, the messaging whispered to certain people that if they become small enough and fragile enough, someone will finally want to lock them in their curio cabinet and COLLECT them. The implication that health is virtue.

I read many of these poems as a wish to tear up and reorder these calls for a certain type of body, size, gender, mental and physical "wellness," even the preconceived notion of what tone & language could be expected in poems probing into heavy topics of mental health and anorexia. I was struck by how wryly playful many of these poems were and often delighted by a particular turn of the phrase. This is going to sound kind of wacky, but this collection had a color for me: warm, strong colors of deep orange and brown and gold. Through watching Cavar play with their own form, starting with a unit as basic as a letter, a word, a line, the author helps us imagine rearranging our own blocks (verbal, physical, mental) into a configuration that's less a coerced expectation and more of a home.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this collection of poems in many short sessions. The poems are transMad, angry, beautiful, touching, about childhood, trauma, autism, disordered eating, gender, powerlessness and anger. They are about breaking free, from ideals of Wellness, from institutions, prisons and cages, shattering form and the bars that keep us contained. In terms of form, they are only sometimes longer than a single page, often shorter. I loved the way the poems used space and size of text.
It was a collection that needed to be read piece by piece, needed to be held and paused with, considered and deeply felt. After breaking free from our cages, after embracing ourselves, how can we rebuild and what does that even mean once you’ve been shattered? This collection illuminated the path for me a bit and will be one I will certainly return to.
The poems I found myself stuck on, rereading before moving on, thinking about whenever I lay the book down are the following: Differential Diagnosis (1), Confessional (Scene 1), wet mistress (Automythology 1.5), Differential Diagnosis (4), The Ways of the Monster, Confessional (Scene 2), Half-Formed Girl Narrative, Mise-en-scéne, Differential Diagnosis (6), Differential Diagnosis (7), Prey Animal, I write you from the hollow, Have you seen my autism?, Differential Diagnosis (10), My First Crime, impediment litany, Emails from the Monster, Alice Narrative, am so sorry: (an essay on ), in a dream | m | asks if I believe in mercy, Running.

[Clarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from Author

Linguistically and structurally Sarah Cavar's work is playful in the way it challenges languages and teases form expectations. Content wise it is raw and devastating.

Cavar's poems are short, with the themes of mental health and sexuality weave through the whole collection. The poem called 'Differential Diagnosis' begins at (1) and by the end of the book it's reached (14), which creates a sense of connection running through and the sense that we are on this journey with the poet.

An outstanding piece personally for me was 'ELEPHANTS THINK THEY ARE THE SIZE OF DOGS'. The title alone is captivating. It begins with the powerful question and image:

'Who can fault them, outwitting their great heft? And I am the size of
Grammy’s voice at the burnt crack beneath her knife.'

and ends with the pure statement:
'Who can fault me for outwitting my body.'

The poet frequently references life and works beyond the poems themselves which places them within both a greater unknowable world and a community of people expressing themselves.

This is a book I'll return to many times and highly recommend.

[M. K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In these poems, the body is not benign. Differential Diagnosis places possible names beside each other in order to find what fits the body best. Anorexia, autism, vampire, monster, and poet, are laid beside and on top of one another while we linger in the space of not knowing: a place, a body, a land, of no name. The poetry's urgent language and viscerality of the body were simultaneously infused with playfulness and lightheartedness. Lines like “being a vampire is just a big ole eating disorder” made me laugh, while “I do not breathe when it strikes me / only when the holes reach my lungs” left me thinking about all the holes / voids / vaults our bodies contain. So much to revisit in these poems!

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my book!!!

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC.

[Arnold T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was anticipating this collection and it lived up to my expectations. Gave me many ideas to ponder and think about and capture in my journal.

[Quinn Gruber · Rating 5 out of 5]

searing poetry from cavar. still sitting in the words.