Rallying

by Quinn Eades

Rallying was written alongside Quinn Eades's first book, all the a queer autobiography of the body, and before he began transitioning from female to male. A collection very much concerned with the body, and the ways in which we create and write under, around, without, and with children, this collection will resonate deeply with anyone who has tried to make creative work from underneath the weight of love. This is a collection of poems that are more than poems. They were written with children, under babies, around grief, amongst crumbs, on trains, with with love. This is a book made of steel and honey, muscle and sun, with tongues. Open its pages and you will find more than poetry. You will find moments in time strung across by text, a poetics of the space between bodies, the way that language makes us separate and simultaneously whole. 'Quinn Eades's poetry is an important part of the continuum of the development of language in relation to gender, the body, language and the expression of the self. In Rallying, his use of direct language is refreshing. Nothing is too tricky or try-hard-clever so that reading these poems is an amazingly clear experience. Even when he is writing exacting descriptive details there's a clarity and a space for feeling to complement the imagery or the thinking. These poems go against cool, conceptual fashionability. Not many contemporary poets are currently writing embodied poetry and no one is writing quite like Quinn Eades. Rallying's close concern with the female body - especially maternal bodies and relational feeling and thought - is a welcome and distinctive addition to the field of Australian poetry.'--Pam Brown

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

150 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2017

About the author

Quinn Eades is a researcher, writer, and award-winning poet whose work lies at the nexus of feminist, queer and trans theories of the body, autobiography, and philosophy. Eades is published nationally and internationally, and is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at La Trobe University, as well as the founding editor of Australia's only interdisciplinary, peer reviewed, gender, sexuality and diversity studies journal, Writing from Below. He is currently working on a collection of fragments written from the transitioning body, titled Transpositions.

Reviews

[Sam Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rallying is an accessible and gutpunching collection of poems about parenthood, bodies, togetherness and separation. I love Eades’ ability to communicate clearly in poetic forms, but also to absolutely blow the roof off convention when it’s needed. This tender, sweet, painfully honest collection is one of the best poetry collections I’ve ever read. I’ll be revisiting.

[Jas Shirrefs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge respect for this collection of poems. Complex musings on childhood and child rearing.

I found myself sometimes wishing that Eades would remove the last line from the poems. Not such a major critique but more of a sense that the poem has finished. Like an extra drip from the kitchen tap when the glass has already been filled.

[Courtney McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved All the Beginnings, but it was refreshing to find this collection of poetry quite different to Quinn's autobiography. These are poems born from love, first for others, I think, and then for the self. These are poems grown from the kitchen, from children, from the familiarity of one's own skin, from the transformation of one's very skin. I especially loved the sense of place captured in these poems, and how places leave their marks on the sense of body and self. The style of these poems can often be quite meandering, but with patience this will lead you deeper into their world. Highly recommend.

[Matthew Berrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quinn Eades is a life writer - and a weaver - he weaves the everyday of tea and toast into the struggles of custody and shifting gender identity. Who are we? Who were we? Where are we now - how does our history shape our future, and how do the the questions we ask ourselves provide comfort in the fact that we must wait for the answers.

Quinn Eades puts himself on the page each day, and for that I am grateful. Arohanui.

[Joshua Galbraith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a dark and deeply personal collection. It echoed with physicality and its depiction of life, loss and love bound with various elemental references made for an emotional and moving read. I didn't know a tureen could make me so sad.

[Ray Zhou · Rating 5 out of 5]

so heartbreakingly tender...