Here is collection of poems about finding oneself in a life--an ordinary life that one could not have imagined--and making the decision to live it. Against our terribly ambivalent present--in which Black, trans, and other minoritized forms of life seem at once more possible than ever and, also, relentlessly under attack--An Optimism gives us poems in search of ways to survive--and even thrive. Anchored by an epistolary sequence directed to the 20th century poet and activist Pauli Murray, and looking to the work of other trans, queer, and black feminist writers like Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan for company and counsel, Cameron Awkward-Rich situate us in spaces intimate and capacious, from lovers' beds to the Gamma Quadrant across the Milky Way. Although it speaks resolutely and intimately from a particular "I", An Optimism turns to the creativity of the motley we to, in Hortense Spillers' words, make "a space for living." These are poems for the living, infused with hope and ancestral wisdom.

About the Author

Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016) and Dispatch (Persea Books, 2019). His creative work has been supported by fellowships from Cave Canem, The Watering Hole, and the Lannan Foundation. Also a scholar of trans theory and expressive culture in the U.S., Cameron earned his PhD from Stanford University's program in Modern Thought & Literature. His more critical writing can be found in Signs, Trans Studies Quarterly, American Quarterly and elsewhere, and has been supported by fellowships from Duke University's Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the ACLS. His book The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment was published by Duke University Press in Fall 2022. Presently, he is an associate professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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