Reviews

THEM Is. I by Jamila Cornick, Calvin Gimpelevich, Jos Charles, Emerson Whitney

caedocyon's review against another edition

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1.0

Nothing worthwhile. A lot of it reads very unedited stream of consciousness.

hilaryreadsbooks's review

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5.0

Wow. I was momentarily speechless after finishing this literary journal. This is one of those collections that I know I'll be picking up over and over again because it's left a deep impression on me and I haven't yet untangled all these feelings yet.

THEM lit defines itself as a space that "prioritizes writers who address trans bodies in their complexities...[by] accounting for how they are racialized, sexualized, colonized, and/or colonizing..." ("trans" being used here in all its imperfection and inevitable ties to identity politics). The contributors write of identity and freedom, sexual desire v. sexual identity, historical and ancestral violence that we continue to perpetuate as a way to exist, among many, many other topics. Poetry, short stories, brief lines of text--they are radical not just because of how their words move to disrupt boundaries, but also simply because they exist on the page.

TraNsindividual: not confinded. / a-blue-un-binding. t o taste / TraNscendency. to face TraNsiency: this brief ["i"] / an awaken>ing, embraced. / in truth: a body left behind. [or.] / TraNsition: a state of grayce. - Boston Davis Bostian, "define: TraNsition"

You can access the online version on issuu.com/themlit. I wouldn't suggest going on themlit.com (which they list as their online store) since it seems to be turned into a porn site lol. It doesn't look like they plan on publishing any more issues in the near future, which is a shame, but at least I have two more issues left to read and a whole lot of time to process what I already have read.
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