Sympathetic Little Monster

by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Poetry. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Through a combination of lyric, narrative, & fractured essay, SYMPATHETIC LITTLE MONSTER attempts to make a space & a shape for the little girl who haunts our cultural/ personal narratives about blackness & transmasculinity. As a trans coming-of-age text the work is intensely inward- focused, but it resists the imperative of linear autobiography. Instead, it uses the personal as a tool to explore what kind of thing a "self" is, its relation to trauma & objectification, & its capacity to be multiple.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Transgender, Memoir, Queer Lit, College

74 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2016

About the author

Cameron Awkward-Rich is a poet and a scholar of trans theory/expressive culture. Awkward-Rich received his B.A. in English and Biology from Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. His writing and teaching creatively combine trans/feminist/queer theory, disability studies, black studies, and poetry and other forms of experimental writing to explore transgender aesthetics and cultural production, the conflicted histories of trans/feminist/queer thought in the U.S., and collective affect/feeling.

Presently, he is an associate professor in the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Reviews

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every. Goddamn. Word. In. This. Book. Makes. Me. Want. To. Sing.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are delicate poems about transformation and metamophosis. My favorite lines, from “Ars Poetica”: “I don’t trust anyone/ who has never learned the person can’t be separated// from the rot.”

[m · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of my favourite books of contemporary poetry I’ve ever read tbh

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such poetic excellence on display here

[Bogi Takács]

Awesome and very cohesive poetry collection, with a strong sense of ambience; I want to write a longer review later with some quotes too.
____
Source of the book: Bought with my own money

[Rivka Yeker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sympathetic Little Monster speaks to the childhood self. It doesn't invalidate the childhood self's experience, nor does it eliminate the pain. It just sits with it. It says, "you existed and now I exist -- and we can co-exist, even if it hurts sometimes." Not a mourning, maybe a reckoning.

A beautiful book, one that reopened my heart and left me feeling raw and simultaneously at peace.

[Noura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to say that I loved this because Cameron Awkward-Rich is one of my favorite poets but I just couldn't. It was missing something for me and I can't put my finger as to what that thing is.

Still, I will continue reading all his work because this didn't curb my love for them.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so unsuspecting; I found it on a little neglected poetry shelf in an Oxfam bookshop, with an understated cover and not much going for it. But, appearances can be deceiving.

Awkward-Rich has produced a wonderful bouquet of poetry that he lays on the gravestone of his past selves. In doing so, we read a heart-felt yet haunting collection on transmutation and self-mourning, which blossoms into a gracious homage to queerness. He continues to trace his fingers over his blackness, his heritage, whilst simultaneously dethorning experiences of familial trauma and relationships.

“Isn’t that what a poem does—studies a thing with two hundred faces then severs all but one?” Awkward-Rich says it perfectly; his poetry is a study of the many-headed complexity of identity, and yet in it all, there remains a single solitary voice: Awkward-Rich. A true poet.

[Emilie Guan · Rating 5 out of 5]

NEW FAVORITE OF ALL TIME
absolutely unbelievable as a poetry collection.

“She enters the machinery of the closet. She goes
through the motions of prayer. A rush of blood
& the membrane shakes loose. Now, she is a
new kind of monster, a new kind of child. Of
course, the story ends with the loyal hand of
gravity, fresh rug burn rouging her cheeks. She
knows there has always been a word for
something like transcendence—the soul, the id, the
cloud, Being untethered by the dark. But walk into
the world of dreams & what rises into the surface
is always just the world: a mother buying a box
of Corn Flakes. A boy entering the bedroom &
leaving a layer of himself behind. The little girl
takes nothing but what is given. She wants to
be a sealed room in a kingdom of rooms. To join
the mute divinity of things.”

[Elaine]

im just a gay lil monster

[Ilana Moyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUCH a beautiful, accessible collection of trans-centered poetry.

[Diana Marie Denza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard Cameron Awkward-Rich read from Sympathetic Little Monster at the 2019 Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival, and knew I had to buy the book. This collection is deeply profound because it conveys, without muddled or overly-complex language, what it means to be queer, black, and trans in a world that doesn't always understand or acknowledge these identities. Two highlights in the collection were "The Child Formerly Known As____" and "Essay on the Appearance of Ghosts." Read this collection!

[thalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will re read this again and again. What a curious, tense, and honest breath of new life into narrative, poetry, and theory. Thank you Awkward-Rich. (Also I have a feeling Awkward-Rich would be an amazing comedy writer as well. Some of the poems’ honest walked on the important tragic end of what seemed to have glimpses of genuine joy and humor— think for example the first poem on airports).

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

This text is rich and amazing. I read it in one sitting, but read each entry multiple times. I feel like I need to read it again and after a month to give it a proper review because all I can do is think of its brilliance.

[willowdog · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are lyrical poems of story-like images of transition girl to boy. Interesting, yet found them cold. We are looking from afar.

[Laura Corin · Rating 5 out of 5]

ugh. so good. read. repeat.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this hit home, lol.

[Ulyera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it hard to engage with queer theory - not because I find it a topic too theoretically dense and complex, or because I do not identify myself with queer identities (I do). It is hard for me because of the explicit sexual nature of queer theory. Not merely attraction, but the eroticized zones of the human body. I can conceptualize the queer body in society, but ask me to send my gaze lower, and suddenly the air is too hot and the words will not come out of my mouth.

In my second semester of grad school, my professor asked me personally what I looked for in a relationship. I must preface this by saying he did not ask me this in any inappropriate scenario, but to characterize my reading of a piece about sovereignty. I could not answer him because a) I don't know, and b) I cannot articulate what I want to say because I do not know what to say and further what I want. It was incredibly embarrassing. My cheeks flamed. My neck got really hot, and I wanted to look everywhere but at him.

So now I am taking a class, and we are spending our session explicitly talking about sex and gender and my professor has asked me to read something explicitly about sex and gender. She has also asked me to write a three-page response to the reading, and I have no clue where to start. How do I vocalize what I cannot even admit to myself?

Anyways. Poetry is an interesting form to play with in connection with theory. It is both anti and pro form, requesting the author to follow a scheme while simultaneously allowing for the deconstruction of said form. In the past, sonnets and iambic pentameters ruled the poetic form. Milton, Shakespeare, and Dante have ruled the genre for so long that anyone who is a poet that are not any of these three seems to be revolutionary.

Awkward-Rich approaches the genre unabashedly, dedicating whole pages to a couple of lines that are not constrained by the conventional forms of poetry. Further, his poetry is defined by the undefinable: the boy who takes his name out of the girl's mouth. He dedicates poems to his parents explicitly, and to masturbation and sex by implication. Central to his poetry is the recognition of pain - physical and emotional.

[Micol Mian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho dovuto comprare questo libretto dagli Stati Uniti e aspettare più di un mese perché arrivasse e diverse delle poesie le avevo già lette in "Transit", eppure è valsa la pena per ogni singola parola. Comprese quelle ripetute.
Ci sono così tanti livelli di lettura - dalla transizione alla violenza razziale alla violenza di genere alla violenza della Modernità stessa («The story of modernity is a ghost story, after all») alla solitudine alla sessualità al dolore - e sono tutti perfettamente fusi in un discorso unico e coerente come può essere unica e coerente (e non esserlo al tempo stesso, per forza di cose) l'esperienza di un singolo individuo. Che porta dentro di sé innumerevoli fantasmi, di tutto ciò che è e non è stato.
Oltre alla bellezza struggente dei versi e dei simboli. Elettrici e sfaccettati. Intensissimi.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sings. This book absolutely sings. Every single poem in this collection is just heartbreakingly beautiful. The book is constructed beautifully---it's not just a grouping-together of poems, it is a true collection. Awkward-Rich's command of language and theory builds up this collection, and it can be read again and again and again.

5/5 stars

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just, WOW.

[annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an incredible book of poetry wow

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good it almost hurts.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful writing, especially "The Child Formerly Known As ________."

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much, so powerful. Such delicate use of language to work with such rough feelings. I'll be coming back to this one, trying to take in more, learn from it.

[Kyli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for ENGL 3331

[Leanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

“All I found was this palmful of dust. Here. Take it. Throw her to the sky. Let her scatter & drift down. Let her coat your pink tongue”

[Nancy Zigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this poetry collection.

[Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many good poems. So many that made me think, made me feel, made me read them over and over again.

[Haddi Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really raw and intense and rich and lovely. Did I understand all the poetry? No. But it isn't meant for me anyways and I loved the window his collection gave me into awkward-rich's trans experience