Appalachian genderqueer punk writer C. Russell Price’s first full-length poetry collection is a somatic grimoire exploring desire, gender, and sexuality in multiverse littered with flowers and product placement. Part pop culture bubblegum lip smack, part battle cry, this collection asks, What is radical vengeance, and does true survivorship from sexual trauma exist only in fantasy, or is it an attainable reality?
Price’s cinematic approach to language and scene is on full display, as well as their dark humor and resilience. Within these pages, the surreal is familiar and grief is a national pastime. If the end is near, who among us would not put on Fleetwood Mac? Who would not clean up their eyeliner just a smidge? This collection pulses with the beat that follows destruction (whether human or natural), the moment the jaw unhinges. These poems are not for pearl clutchers. They are for those who have already felt their private apocalypse.
C. Russell Price’s debut collection is a somatic grimoire exploring desire, gender, and sexuality. It asks: What is radical vengeance? Does true survivorship from sexual trauma exist only in fantasy, or is it an attainable reality?
C. RUSSELL PRICEis originally from Glade Spring, Virginia, but now lives in Chicago. They are a Lambda Fellow in Poetry, a Ragdale Fellow, a Windy City Times 30 Under 30 honoree, an essayist, and a poet. They are the author of a chapbook,Tonight, We Fuck the Trailer Park Out of Each Other. Their work has appeared in theBoston Review,Court Green,DIAGRAM,Iron Horse Literary Review,Lambda Literary,Nimrod International,PANK, and elsewhere.
“This debut by an ‘Appalachian genderqueer punk writer’ is as playful and provocative as you might guess.” —
New York Times“Price uses powerful, honest language to discuss heavy topics such as mental l£é