Overview

Jayson Keery’s world-building poems reimagine the coming-of-age narrative for queer and trans people. Winner of The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors (Poetry), The Choice is Real is a romp through millennial media landscapes and an interrogation of their power as systems of early childhood gender programming. Challenging the conventions of how queer and trans people are encouraged to tell their stories, The Choice is Real engages the concept of choice in queerness and trivializes the linear “born-this-way” narratives that queer people are sold. In response to a second puberty brought on by medical transition and an unravelling of family structures following the death of their stepmother, Keery regresses through a warped and foreboding childhood landscape saturated with pop culture iconography. Writing with and against Disney classics, Keery moves between formative memories and contemporary moments, weaving in accounts of current relations in their playful uprooting of assumptions of queer relationality. Opening with a cheeky epigraph from trans author and activist Lou Sullivan: “I love being a girl. So delicate,” The Choice is Real explodes with celebration and criticism of girlhood from a transmasculine perspective.

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9781988355344

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Reviews

"""A debut in name only, The Choice is Real is a testament to what utter magic can occur when a poet makes of the line an altar to study and quest from. Sure-footed, sorcerous and tender in its ferocity, this is one of the most impressive and unforgettable first books I've read in years."" -- Ocean Vuong ""Dedicated 'to those forced to prove it, ' this is queer celebration! A big Q in the bed, in the world, making every conversation we think we understand clearer, roomier, wild, and weird! Jayson Keery is one of my favorite living poets, and I am so glad you found this book to celebrate its magnificent poetry! -- CAConrad ""I find that the best kind of work is the work that can evoke a sense of longing for the text, where the work itself builds intimacy and innateness through the words that land at a truth. There were so many suspended moments while reading Jayson Keery's The Choice is Real, where I felt this, their skill at landing at truth with such viscerality and feeling; it's an uncanny ability that ran like a radiant current through the pages. There are lines in The Choice is Real that I wished I had written, and observations I felt deeply in my soul. I'm excited and in awe of how this book wields Keery's marvelous talent."" -- Fariha Róisín, author of Who is Wellness For?, Like a Bird, and How to Cure a Ghost"

A debut in name only, The Choice is Real is a testament to what utter magic can occur when a poet makes of the line an altar to study and quest from. Sure-footed, sorcerous and tender in its ferocity, this is one of the most impressive and unforgettable first books I've read in years. -- Ocean Vuong Dedicated 'to those forced to prove it, ' this is queer celebration! A big Q in the bed, in the world, making every conversation we think we understand clearer, roomier, wild, and weird! Jayson Keery is one of my favorite living poets, and I am so glad you found this book to celebrate its magnificent poetry! -- CAConrad I find that the best kind of work is the work that can evoke a sense of longing for the text, where the work itself builds intimacy and innateness through the words that land at a truth. There were so many suspended moments while reading Jayson Keery's The Choice is Real, where I felt this, their skill at landing at truth with such viscerality and feeling; it's an uncanny ability that ran like a radiant current through the pages. There are lines in The Choice is Real that I wished I had written, and observations I felt deeply in my soul. I'm excited and in awe of how this book wields Keery's marvelous talent. -- Fariha Roisin, author of Who is Wellness For?, Like a Bird, and How to Cure a Ghost

""A debut in name only, The Choice is Real is a testament to what utter magic can occur when a poet makes of the line an altar to study and quest from. Sure-footed, sorcerous and tender in its ferocity, this is one of the most impressive and unforgettable first books I've read in years."" -- Ocean Vuong ""Dedicated 'to those forced to prove it, ' this is queer celebration! A big Q in the bed, in the world, making every conversation we think we understand clearer, roomier, wild, and weird! Jayson Keery is one of my favorite living poets, and I am so glad you found this book to celebrate its magnificent poetry! -- CAConrad ""I find that the best kind of work is the work that can evoke a sense of longing for the text, where the work itself builds intimacy and innateness through the words that land at a truth. There were so many suspended moments while reading Jayson Keery's The Choice is Real, where I felt this, their skill at landing at truth with such viscerality and feeling; it's an uncanny ability that ran like a radiant current through the pages. There are lines in The Choice is Real that I wished I had written, and observations I felt deeply in my soul. I'm excited and in awe of how this book wields Keery's marvelous talent."" -- Fariha Róisín, author of Who is Wellness For?, Like a Bird, and How to Cure a Ghost

Author Information

Jayson Keery is based in Western Massachusetts, where they completed their MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Choice Is Real is their first full-length collection. They are the author of the chapbook Astroturf (o-blēk editions, edited by Peter Gizzi, 2022). Their work has appeared in Boulevard, Black Warrior Review, Hot Pink, b l u s h lit, Peach Mag, and others. They have been anthologized in Mundus Press's Nocturnal Properties, Nightboat Books' We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, and Pilot Press London's A Queer Anthology of Rage. They received the 2022 Metatron Press Prize for Rising Authors, selected by Fariha Róisín, and the 2021 Daniel and Merrily Glosband MFA Fellowship, selected by Wendy Xu. A complete list of publications, awards, and interviews live online at JaysonKeery.com.

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