Gwen Benaway

Included in a blog post and resource list at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/06/10/non-fiction-about-gender-and-trans-e...

Featured in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/11/11/guest-post-poetry-from-a-former-skep...… (more)

I read this in one sitting, it was so readable.

Deeply rooted in place and transcending boundaries of gender, sex, love and memory, Benaway conjures up some beautiful imagery. What I perhaps enjoyed about this most was how easy it was to read.

Sometimes, reading a poem feels like a physical act where you're really conscious of what you're doing, deconstructing the text, taking feelings from it, mulling over those feelings... It can be quite the labour, although it is a labour of love. In this case, Passage was just so easy to read I never felt like I was reading poetry as we were made to do in high school, I appreciated this collection a lot.

Her poems never feel too wordy or complex, or too clever.

Benaway is Anishnaabe and Metis and trans so there was so much about self-love, about identity, about learning and unlearning in here, but it never felt like difficult or like work.

This collection flows like water, carving out a place for belonging like water does to a canyon.… (more)

As an anthology, the works are of course of varying styles and quality. For the most part the stories were excellent and of very high quality, but there were a few stories with blatant errors or typos that I was surprised got past editing. I hope they are caught before final release, as I was reading an ARC. But I definitely found a few authors who's work I'll look out for in the future.

As for the content of the stories, there were some standard swords-and-sworcery fantasy tales which I get kind of bored by, but some real gems. I am glad Benaway, in her role as editor, took a broad view of what counts as "fantasy" when accepting submissions.

And mainly I'm just glad this book exists. I'm glad there are publishing spaces for authors who are trans, and I'm glad I get to read their stories.

I received a free eARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.… (more)