Review of Milk Teeth in Cordite

Adam Ford reviewed Milk Teeth and Anders Villani’s Aril Wire in Cordite!

** You can read the full review here **

I could honestly quote the whole piece, but here’s one of the most striking paragraphs re: what I’m trying to achieve in my work:

But while gender identity is at the fore of some poems, White also challenges the potential assumption that a non-binary activist poet can or should only write about their activism. This point is successfully made by poems like ‘Plants my exes gave me’ and ‘Enraptured’, which depict experiences like gardening and falling in love that are common to all humans. In doing so White validates and celebrates the continuum of gender with other modes of experience, and hopefully educates those who believe they can only experience non-binary life vicariously.

And my absolute favourite lines:

There’s an appealing messiness, a futz and clutter, a chaos to the world White writes … Milk Teeth is an eclectic mixtape of a book, a stellar debut exhibiting equal parts ‘fuck that noise’ and a visceral love of life.

Thank you Adam and Cordite for such an insightful and eloquent review!

abstract painting with harsh black lines, filled in with bright colours: pink, blue and orange

New poetry, pals!

Yesterday I had a lovely chat about Milk Teeth with Sadie Ward on All Things Queer RTRFM 92.1. We spoke about themes of navigating the world as a non-binary person and breaking down barriers.

**You can listen back to the interview on the RTRFM website.**

I also have a poem in the latest issue of Cordite alongside some of my fave poets, including Candy Royalle, Toby Fitch, Michael Farrell, Emily Crocker, Ray Briggs, Zenobia Frost, Angela Gardner, Elizabeth Duck-Chong, Bec Jessen, Jill Jones, Madison Godfrey, Fiona Hile, and so many many more.

**Have a read of my poem ‘I’ve got something to say’.**

Also: this poem is part of a new collection I’m working on, which explores non-binary people and space: the space we take up, the space we don’t, the space we’re denied, the space we reclaim. And just between you and me, more poems from this work in progress will be published soon!

 

[Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash]

‘Do more, do better’ – new poetry @ Cordite!

The wonderful Cordite Publishing Inc. commissioned Keira Edwards-Huolohan and I for an art-poetry-essay project! The process of working on this commission was collaborative, cathartic and invigorating.

‘Do more, do better’ is a poem in four parts that explores transgender discrimination through a hypothetical augmented reality (AR) mobile app. There are accompanying inked and embroidered art pieces, which reiterate key themes within the poem, and a critical statement, which analyses the poem and artwork while asking ‘the reader as well as the wider community if they are doing enough for trans people and others in marginalised communities’.

TRIGGER WARNINGS for the pieces: transphobia, including mentions of misgendering, slurs, violence, death, self-harm.

Read the poem ‘Do more, do better’.

Browse the artwork and read the critical statement
‘The Unaugmented Reality of Transgender Discrimination.

A big thank you to Kent MacCarter and Rosalind McFarlane at Cordite for their encouragement and commission of this project. It was an absolute joy to work with you both!

Art - Trans-Shield-logo