Lustre of a Burning Corpse

Book excerpt: A collection of 48 raw and explosive poems that draw from the themes of violence, queerness, memory and hope. It puts gender in a witness box, asks it to explain where its hands have been. It prods violence with questions about its omnipresence and its celebration. It spells queerness with an arresting alphabet. The poems attempt to carve words from a place of memory and also a place of anticipation, it’s not simply a recollection, but also hope as a metaphor “What they do not tell you, about kissing a girl is even when you like it - your eyes will always stay open on the lookout for fire, but there might be lipstick and hers might wear on yours like a swatch Make a colour you can’t name, and when you get home your mother might say this shade; This shade makes you glow.” From “Of Lipsticks and Labels”