“‘On Earth, a fish barricades her den / and emerges male two months later, / melon-head worthy of brawling and teeth,’ announces one of the brilliant sectioned poems central to Lily-livered. ‘On Mars, the sunset is blue. / She asks me about this second life / of red dirt, burnt skin. What do you enjoy // about being a man?’ Although framed by a series of ‘transiversaries,’ to describe this collection in diaristic terms would not do justice to the overlay of questions raised around gender, beauty, diet, desire, violence, medication and self-medication. An interest in refrain and cyclical structures anchors us, pleasingly counterbalanced against enjambment and an adventuresome sense of the line; we welcome cultural cameos from Shakespeare, HBO, and indie rock. This is a stunning read that showcases a sophisticated, exciting approach to contemporary poetics.”

— Sandra Beasley, Count the Waves

“Cyclical and dreamy, yet sinewy, Wren Hanks’ Lily-livered is a record of the hungers—for food, for sex, for alcohol—that simultaneously tie us to and alienate us from our bodies. Though a site of suffering and addiction, the physical in Lily-livered is also a conduit for pleasure, connection, and transformation, where ‘a girl prayed let me be sea / and ended up a man.’ Lily-livered portrays embodied living in all its ambivalent, bloody glory, while summoning the tenderness to ‘cradle everyone I cannot save, myself included.’ Hanks wakes us up to the sublime, precarious selves housed in these strange, disgusting, beautiful bodies—and you will feel more alive for having read it.”

— Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Look Alive