Button Poetry

(On Un-)Becoming is a collection of stories, reflections, forgivenesses and offerings rooted in conversations and conflicts with FreeQuency''s mother, chosen family & other selves. The anti disciplinary project liberates the concept of ''transitioning'' from the realm of Westernised notions of gender and expands explores explodes the concept of (un)becoming in relationship to international Blackness, migration movement, geographic and corporeal displacement, spiritual mental health and the ties between personal and communal transformation.

Chelsea Guevara''s Cipota breathes a lineage into a song-making music of ancestral memory: dirges of heartbreak and generational trauma, anthems of rage and reclamation, ballads of love and homecoming. Guevara''s voice enchants as she delves into history, ancestry, and the self-reaching for a lineage that has been battered by strife and strangled by colonialism. She moves through place and memory with deft skill and earnest humanity. Cipota examines the grief of culture lost, of a home you''ve been separated from, one that doesn''t truly feel like yours. Cipota is a beating heart that demands to be heard. You will be rapt from start to finish.

Finalist for the 2023 Button Poetry Chapbook Prize, Daniel Elias Galicia''s debut collection, Still Desert sings with histories both haunting and enchanting. Artistically and linguistically dynamic, Galicia''s poems weave personal and historical narratives of immigration, assimilation, and Mexican heritage. Still Desert lingers in the spaces between borders and crossings, breathing in rich, tactile environments and raw, complex emotions. With a musical rage and a sacred love, Galicia speaks to unsung lineages and the violences found before, during, and after crossing the border.

L.E. Bowman''s latest collection Shapeshifter aches with the soft sorrows and hard-won joys of life. Melodic and introspective, Bowman''s poems converse-struggling with grief and hopelessness while fighting for love and recovery. Shapeshifter grounds the reader in the body, ever transforming with age and experience. Reckoning with self-image, heartbreak, and motherhood, this collection emphasises the beauty in mundanity - the journey that is life. Bowman''s Shapeshifter embraces the fear of an ever-changing and vulnerable existence, encouraging the reader to live in spite and because of that fear. It''s a truly touching collection that can''t be missed!

In his anticipated second collection, Forgotten Necessities, Jared Singer wears love and loss on his skin. Through spell-bindingly immersive storytelling, Singer digs to the roots of our deepest woes and cradles our joys with utmost tenderness. Intimacy and vulnerability ache across the time and space of these poems. Forgotten Necessities holds its sadness sacredly and builds shrines to the hope that follows. Persistent reminders of the small kindnesses that make a life meaningful to the living and the dead. A brilliant follow-up to his debut, Singer''s Forgotten Necessities is itself a necessity, a haunting that heals.

WASH brutally dissects black womxnhood for all its blood, beauty, sacrifice and strength. Ebony Stewart''s praise and pleas for the lives of black womxn create a devotional space for healing. Stewart''s third collection is uncompromising and emotionally raw. Through trauma and recovery, black girlhood comes of age in WASH, journeying through moments of self-discovery, mental illness, love and heartbreak. Stewart reckons traditional definitions of womxnhood, exploring its complications, its communities, and its queerness. With a distinct, lyrical poetic voice, WASH tells a story of queer, black womxnhood that perseveres. A collection that will bring you to tears and brighten your day, Ebony Stewart''s WASH cannot be missed!

The reader can follow multiple paths that mirror the choices, experiences, and struggles one makes when reclaiming themselves in the face of sexual abuse. While being intensely personal, Wild/Hurt moves resonantly through memory and healing in a way that can speak to many survivors. Through its hardships and suffering, this collection comes to realise and love the intimate parts of itself. Ford''s work encompasses a survivor''s entire personhood - growing from their trauma, discovering and celebrating queerness, and living and loving with disability. Wild/Hurt is a rich, heartfelt collection that makes the reading an experience, telling a new, remarkable story with each reread.

Phil SaintDenisSanchez''s debut collection self-portrait before & after my body tackles complex familial history and struggles, emerging in the rich backdrop of New Orleans, Louisiana. Through multilayered language and immersive imagery, SaintDenisSanchez interweaves political and social issues - from the lasting impacts of colonialism to environmental disaster - with intensely personal narratives of love, learning, and loss. The long, lyrical form and enrapturing poetic voice draw you in and refuse to let you go. self-portrait before & after my body maps a stunningly poignant family tree and gets at the root of the social forces that shaped its growth.

Blythe Baird's If My Body Could Speak is a celebration of girlhood and all of its struggles and triumphs. In poems that dig deep into sexuality, acceptance of the body, survival of trauma, and learning to love yourself in spite of everything telling you not to, Baird's voice is a rich addition to her generation. Searing, soaring, and heartbreaking, If My Body Could Speak balances the softness of femininity with the sharpness that girls are forced to become. Includes poems such as "Girl Code 101", "When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny", and "Pocket-Sized Feminism" that have been watched by millions online.

Filled with nostalgia, love, heartbreak, and the author's signature wry examinations of mental health, Neil Hilborn's second book helps explain what lives inside us, what we struggle to define. Written on the road over two years of touring, The Future is rugged, genuine, and relatable. Grabbing attention like gravity, Hilborn reminds readers that no matter how far away we get, we eventually all drift back together. These poems are fireworks for the numb. In the author's own words, The Future is a blue sky and a full tank of gas, and in it, we are alive.

Helium is the debut poetry collection by internet phenom Rudy Francisco, whose work has defined poetry for a generation of new readers. Rudy's poems and quotes have been viewed and shared millions of times as he has traveled the country and the world performing for sell-out crowds. Helium is filled with work that is simultaneously personal and political, blending love poems, self-reflection, and biting cultural critique on class, race and gender into an unforgettable whole. Ultimately, Rudy's work rises above the chaos to offer a fresh and positive perspective of shared humanity and beauty.