The Robert Poems - by S Yarberry (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A speculative poetic history reimagining Robert Blake, the brother of the celebrated poet William Blake, as a trans man in the eighteenth century.

Blending deeply researched historical details with the author's personal experiences, The Robert Poems playfully and critically imagines a trans literary archive during a period in which transness, as we know it today, is not always readily visible. Robert Blake was a ghostly figure that often visited his brother, William, after Robert's untimely death at the age of twenty-five--the same age S. Yarberry was when they began their medical transition. This happenstance of transitions, medical and metaphysical, drove Yarberry through a series of poetic explorations culminating in a collection with one question beating at its heart: what if trans history could be built on abundance, rather than scarcity?

For fans of Jordy Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox and Ruth Padel's Darwin, The Robert Poems provides a lush landscape for Robert to thrive within, offering a new wellspring for trans pasts and a springboard from which to imagine inventive, expansive trans futures.

Review Quotes

"What an incredible collection of poems! Once I started, I could not stop reading. S. Yarberry has created a space for a lens on themselves and the world between two Blakes. 'Someone is opening up their arms to engulf what cannot be forgiven. Sorrow happens in the daylight too.' The Robert Poems is great news from a brilliant poet queering the language anew." --CA Conrad, author of First Light

"S. Yarberry's The Robert Poems write back what's lost to the feverish Blakean archive. Conjuring an unquenchable constellation to pin the shadow of being to, these poems bear loss in order to bear life, where the self approaches the self through trans formalism that rides the undertows of apocalyptic and apocryphal desire. Slicing across "edge of edges" and the "shell of hearts" of desire's "fretted prophecies," The Robert Poems offer us salacious fabulation, unafraid to want something into existence: the self. These poems do that - transcend the death at the heart of life to make something new. Like Milton entering Blake's foot in searing inspiration, these poems make me arch for more and more and more. These poems are exquisite, thrilling, and most of all, unfettered." --Rosie Stockton, author of Permanent Volta

About the Author

S. Yarberry (he/they) is a trans poet and scholar. Their poems have appeared in AGNI, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Indiana Review, among many others. His first book, A Boy in the City, (Deep Vellum, 2022), was the winner of the Foreword INDIES Prize in Poetry. S. is currently a PhD Candidate in English at Northwestern University where he studies William Blake. Based in Chicago, S. runs the literary magazine Tyger Quarterly and hosts the monthly PO Box Poetry reading series.