A book of transition—poetic, political, religious—and its always radical implications. Occupied with trans spirituality, the genocide in Palestine, and the manifold intricacies of queer love and struggle, the poems in imogen smith’s second collection, raw & zero, open up an unabashedly musical incitement to take a stand on honest ground. At the heart of this collection lies the tensions between the philosophical and the pornographic. Language unspools throughout long form pieces influenced by concrete poetry, as the poet plays with a sense of shape, space, and symbols. With raw & zero, smith charts medical transition, a budding Islamic practice, and civic resistance, felt in the book’s themes of meaning-making, hope, love, lust, identity, and community alongside personal, regional, and global grief.
A book of transition—poetic, political, religious—and its always radical implications. Occupied with trans Islamic spirituality, the genocide in Palestine, and the manifold intricacies of queer love, the poems in imogen smith’s second collection, raw & zero, open up an unabashedly musical incitement to take a stand on honest ground. The poems in this collection are pastoral and urban, investigating the tensions between the philosophical and the pornographic. The influence of concrete poetry is felt throughout the book’s middle section, where the poet plays with the sense of shape, space, and symbols. The author began both medically transitioning and converted to Islam during the writing of this book, which is felt in the book’s themes of grounding, meaning, hope, love, lust, identity, and community alongside personal, regional, and global grief.
