Beforelight

Beforelightexplores queer childhood as a site ofrupture and queer coming-of-age as a process of both becoming and unbecoming.With wisdom and grace, the speaker in these poems confrontsthe impacts of fragmented relationships and trauma on his nascent identity,ultimately committing to the self's authenticity as the highest form ofdevotion. Lush, cinematic, and deeply psychological, these poems grapple withthe fragility of our most formative connectionsfamilial, communal, andancestralas the speaker searches for communion with himself and tries todiscover how not to make a life out of pain.