Leather-Hard Clay, by Klavier Bayon

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Leather-Hard Clay is a collection of 14 poems employing varying lengths and styles reflecting the changing nature of interpersonal relationships and identity. For clay to be leather hard means for it to be in a state of enough rigidity to maintain its shape when handled, but malleable enough to be changed. It is a critical state for the clay to exist in, and it allows room for error. This state is reminiscent of young adulthood, in which those overcoming generational trauma are given the room to mold themselves into a new version, one simultaneously free from and endlessly informed by the past. A deeply personal account of the relationships, identities, and dynamics that can shape one’s life, readers can find in Leather-Hard Clay that love of all kinds remains even among the ugliness and danger of transformation: platonic, romantic, familial bonds that remain, the English teacher that the queer kids flock to, God, the friends that never call, and, perhaps most importantly, love within the self. Klavier Bayon is a queer, trans Latino from Texas completing his BA in English with a minor in Social Justice and Education. When he's not engaging with educational policy, he spends much of his time musing on interpersonal relationships, trauma, and healing, and the way these topics interconnect in daily life beyond traditional scopes. These themes are prominent in his first chapbook, Leather-Hard Clay, and he dreams of incorporating his knowledge and practices about them into his pedagogical style to improve literary education.