GenderFux

by JP Seabright, Jem Henderson, Jonathan Kinsman

"Wow. Here are three poets conducting intimate experiments with sound and silence who take glorious risks with form and land on their feet. These poems explore with panache the difficult edges of experiences held in the body and heart. The confronted self becomes a ‘traveller / from the upper cretaceous’ or reverberates with ‘all my etcetera etcetera / this effeminate ephemera’. This is writing that sizzles and enlivens, whether navigating the maze of the new or taking exhilarating ownership of a consonant ‘clipped and certain of its ends and its beginnings.’"

John McCullough, Poet, Hawthorndon Prize-winning author of Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins)

"GenderFux is the collaborative work of three immensely talented poets whose work all exists in the same uncomfortable but enduring space. These poems are bursting with the desperation to be heard, and they leave you enveloped in the rich worlds sketched on the page, and the haze of everything else left unsaid in the margins.

Holding space for queer trauma, love, sex, and pop culture references, GenderFux is a masterclass in full and complete portraiture that doesn’t leave anything out. It is tongue-in-cheek, brutal, evocative and electric - and will leave you with their words ringing in your ears."

Kathryn O’Driscoll, UK slam champion, poet, performer, author of Cliff Notes (Verve Poetry Press)

46 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2022

Reviews

[Eilif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you, Tony, for this book! Like many poetry collections, some hit and some don’t. I really really enjoyed some of Jem Henderson’s poems.
The “possible genders” poem was very similar to a game I played with old housemates. Fun to compare our lists. :)

[Katy Wimhurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting work in which three experimental poets explore issues and ideas around gender. I liked how the poets are interspersed with each other, without being named, and you have to go to the end to discover who it is. Particular favourites were JP Seabright’s ‘1994’, a moving response to the Massive Attack/Tracey Thorn song Protection, and their powerful ‘From the Book of Demons’, which uses the format of a bible to explore abuse meted out by of a form Christianity on a young gay person. I also really enjoyed those poems which cleverly use or rework mythic themes, such as Jem Hendersen’s ‘Selkie’, which takes the form of question and answer, and ‘myling’ by Johnathon Kinsman, which takes its name from the child ghost of Scandinavian myth

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. I love the idea of three poets producing work next to one another without revealing (until the end) who wrote what. I love that the poems were all about genders. Lots of this spoke to me.