A review by 11corvus11
QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology by Mark Ellis, Andrew Morrison-Gurza, Gregory Villa, Donna Minkowitz, John Whittier Treat, Lucas Scheelk, John R. Killacky, Arthur Durkee, Christopher Dempsey, Beatrice Hale, Jax Jacki Brown, Monique Flynn, Meg Day, Brenna Cyr, Barbara Ruth, Kit Mead, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Toranse Lowell, Larry Connolly, Sara Ibrahim, Quintan Ana Wikswo, D. Allen, Liv Mammone, James Schwartz, Kathi Wolfe, Donna Williams, Carl Wayne Denney, Kristen Ringman, Katharina Love, Marika Prokosh, Zak Plum, Kenny Fries, Tak Hallus, Jason T. Ingram, Michael Russell, David Cummer, Lydia Brown, The Poet Spiel, Nola Weber, Stephanie Heit, Raymond Luczak, Bex, Petra Kuppers, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Ashley Volion, Joel Gates, Allison Fradkin, Maverick Smith, Whittier Strong

3.0

Full disclosure, I expected this book to be different in composition than it was and that has likely affected my experience with it. The positives of this book is that there is representation of voices sometimes unheard in anthologies like this such as Deaf queer folks, folks without super academic or radical backgrounds, and others. That said, I expected more essays than there were. I am not a big poetry person nor do I understand what makes poetry good and bad. When I found most of the entries in this book to be poetry, I was disappointed. There are also fiction and nonfiction stories told in here and sometimes it is difficult to tell which is which. I found a couple of the stories to be downright detestable (especially the one which is basically a woman talking about how ugly everyone is, the story of the developmentally disabled man's parents setting him up on a date with an abled pedophile woman, and various stories heralding assimilationism.) I don't know... I am a queer and trans disabled person who was hoping to read something I'd relate to or gain something from more than I did. The entries that I did enjoy- which tended to be the more radical of the bunch such as Jax Jacki Brown and others- I enjoyed a lot, which is why this gets the middle-of-the-road rating. If you're a person who really enjoys poetry, you will probably like this better than I did.