Not Your Orlando

"One of the best books I've read this year" Buzz Magazine

Not Your Orlando is a raw and tender, gender- and genre-fluid collaborative poetry pamphlet that glistens with sex and sweat. JP, George and Jaime explore life at the margins, the politics of sex and identity, the protest songs of late night dive bars, and the reality of being different in a straight-jacketed world. Strap on and strap in, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

"This is a book full of feist and fury, wit and wonderment, tales of terror and tales of triumph. Structured into three sections - agitate, transmutate, celebrate - it takes us on a journey which encompasses its own 'Choose Life' rhetoric (this poem alone is worth the price of the book) on through club cloakrooms, "transmasculine kisses", and encouragement to Cwtch Butch - the trials and the terribleness, the joy and the jubilation, are all here. It is utterly human and humane, heartbreaking and heart lifting. The language veers and soars, and is clever and captivating throughout, without even one iota of pretension or 'poor me' in any of it. It's one of the best books I've read this year. Read Not Your Orlando now, yourself, and let it fill you with wonder"
- Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine

"The musicality of the political poems here is reminiscent of freedom songs and the chants of revolutions, making for a timeless contribution to the poetics of uprising. These are poems that should be on billboards. Their collaborative writing, which boldly dissolves the cult of individualism, cements this queer poetry in queer practice. Here is a book that deserves a place in the archives of liberation literature."
- lisa minerva luxx, poet, playwright, political activist, author of Fetch Your Mothers Heart

"Not Your Orlando stems from the life force that is trans family. These poems sweat & feel & fuck their way into being. What a honour to be seen by these words."
- Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, poet, playwright, and sex education facilitator

"Not Your Orlando address us with proud discourse on 'what it means to Be'. As 'queerness' - like poetry - is at once separate and bound to the non-normative soul, this collection is a manifestation of queer life in all its glory. Three revolutionary poets remind us of ourselves."
- Dorian Rose, Founder/Director of Transmuted

"Wow. What a definitive and triumphant march through the complicated, messy, beautiful ways one can be as a queer person. A powerhouse collaboration that speaks to the multitudes of raw experience and aching desire."
- Bridget Hart, writer, performer, producer, co-director of For Books' Sake