“‘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
“Lily-livered is a beautifully braided catalog of ways to live and not die. Wren Hanks writes on friendship, hunger, touch, transformation, and the inheritance of a trait for which the chapbook is named. ‘Imagine it happened in a barn, a meat cellar.’ These poems unfurl as an array of forms, forms of life, with sensuous patterns and particulars. With ‘stubble the possible field,’ Hanks breathes lines that combine ribaldry, romance, and refrain into stunning, surprising images and interconnections. This is a smart, moving collection that you will love reading alone or with friends. ‘The ground is safe.’ ”
—Oliver Baez Bendorf, Advantages of Being Evergreen
Genre: Poetry Chapbook
ISBN: 978-1-949065-10-7
Page Count: 46
Release Date: March 9 2021
**Cover Art by Denis Sarazhin
**Cover Design by Sally Franckowiak