Splendor
$17.00
Additional Info
- ISBN: 9781966192022
- Size: 6" x 7"
- Publication Date: September 1, 2026
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engaging with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Table of Contents
Other
On (Trans) Ways of Being
Rickey Laurentiis
Rickey Laurentiis was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to care. Her debut book, Boy with Thorn, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, and the Whiting Award. Her much anticipated second collection, Death of the First Idea, was published in 2025 by Knopf and longlisted for the National Book Award; it was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a nominee for a NAACP Image Award.
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
from Sandro's Girlfriend
Camila Sosa Villada
Camila Sosa Villada was born in 1982 in La Falda (Córdoba, Argentina). She is a writer, actress, and singer. She holds degrees in communication and theater from the National University of Córdoba. Her play Carnes tolendas, retrato escénico de una travesti was selected for the 2010 National Theater Festival held in La Plata. Her first novel, Bad Girls, won the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro and has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
Kit Maude
Kit Maude is a translator based in Buenos Aires. He has translated dozens of Latin American writers for a wide array of publications and writes reviews for Ñ, Otra Parte, and the Times Literary Supplement.
from The Ocean in Your Mouth
Luka Holmegaard
Luka Holmegaard (he/they; b. 1990) is an award-winning Danish author of fiction, essays, and poetry. He made his debut with the novel Emma Emma in 2015, followed by Graceland in 2017. LOOK (2020) is a genre-defying work about the role of clothing in literature, in creating and reshaping gender, in political protests, in power relations, in sex and love, and in the precarious labor market. LOOK was critically acclaimed in both Denmark and Germany and nominated for the Politikens Literature Prize. The Ocean in Your Mouth is his fourth book.
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
from Word Dream Body
Kim Sono
Kim Sono (b. 1992) is a Seoul- and Berlin-based nonbinary poet working at the limits of language, sound, and the body. Their practice approaches poetry as a performative site where dreams, oral narratives, and fragmented archives circulate. Through stuttering, silence, and repetition, they resist fixed identity and linear history. They are the author of four poetry collections, Word Dream Body (Vookda, forthcoming 2026), Syncopation (ASIA, 2024), The Film Set (Moonji, 2022), and Night Soccer (Achimdal, 2020).
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
from The Last Hare
Ida Hove Solberg
Ida Hove Solberg is a Norwegian nonbinary poet, editor, translator, and critic with a PhD in translation studies from the University of Oslo. In 2024, they published their narrative poetry book The Last Hare, which was nominated for the Prisma Award in the category Nordic Work of the Year. In 2016, they co-founded Mellom, Norway’s first literary magazine for translated literature. As a translator, they have worked with the poetry of Athena Farrokhzad and Rasha Abdulhadi, and together with Sofia Knudsen Estifanos, they translated Terrance Hayes’s American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin into Norwegian.
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
from Pascale Overload
Pascale Bérubé
Pascale Bérubé is perhaps an anomaly: a trans poet who is seemingly uninterested in stable gender assignments. She is more interested in transness itself, that is, what lies between and never quite resolves itself into an identity, a floating inside an indeterminate Being. To quote the final words of the first poem in her collection, Trop de Pascale: “je ne suis pas moi” (I am not me). Perhaps this could be described as a more generalized dysphoria, but, in the hands of Bérubé, it is above all a poetics, a reappropriation of Rimbaud’s “Je est un autre.”
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
Praise
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!”—CAConrad, author of First Light
Praise for the Calico series
“These Calico books are a total joy, both in form and in content. The books come in a curious trim size (or rather a couple curious trim sizes, although I think they’ve stabilized in their square format now after a few larger-sized volumes) that fits nicely in the hand and every single one of them promises a wealth of discovery for the internationally curious reader: Ukrainian poetry, Swahili fiction, queer Brazilian stories, Latin American horror, and so much more.”—Lit Hub, “A Small Press Book We Love”
“Unbelievably exciting… These are poems to read and reread, repeating the lines as though they were a secret between yourself and the page.”—The Paris Review on Home: New Arabic Poems
“This eclectic bilingual anthology from queer Brazilian writers, both living and dead, is as expansive and full of life as the country itself…enticing and poignant.”—Publishers Weekly on Cuíer: Queer Brazil
“Visible approaches translation as an act that occurs not only between languages but also between media and disciplines… Thoughtfully curated… Past and present come together in a refreshingly collaborative spirit.”—Brooklyn Rail on Visible
“An absorbing sampler of the literary feast available in Africa’s most widely spoken language, No Edges should leave readers eager to discover more Swahili writers.”—Shailja Patel, author of Migritude, on No Edges
“For the women highlighted in this collection, the act of writing is one of critical defiance that gives voice to voiceless women and, further, engages in the creation of a redefined Caribbean femininity that defies patriarchal or colonial coercion… Elektrik is translation operating as good translation should: as a megaphone for writers who might otherwise remain unheard in the Western canon.”—Barrelhouse on Elektrik
Rickey Laurentiis
Rickey Laurentiis was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to care. Her debut book, Boy with Thorn, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, and the Whiting Award. Her much anticipated second collection, Death of the First Idea, was published in 2025 by Knopf and longlisted for the National Book Award; it was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a nominee for a NAACP Image Award.
Upcoming Events
Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here(opens in a new tab).
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
Books
Rickey Laurentiis was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to care. Her debut book, Boy with Thorn, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, and the Whiting Award. Her much anticipated second collection, Death of the First Idea, was published in 2025 by Knopf and longlisted for the National Book Award; it was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a nominee for a NAACP Image Award.