Sudden Queer Birth Syndrome, by Eli V. Rahm

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Sudden Queer Birth Syndrome is an extraction—visceral, wet, uncanny. These poems explore the idea of birthing your own sexual and gender identity, from the graffiti-covered trains of Berlin to the sun-soaked, ochre streets of Virginia. Here, domesticity is rendered both loving and raw, vampiric and tender. The babies in this chapbook thrive in hybrid bodies, as dog-headed foxes, boy-killing rats, or rotting betta fish. Eli’s writing is devoted to excess—where consuming and expelling are equal acts of creation. To create yourself is its own act of devotion, like salmon leaping into an open maw, or birthing a penguin-shaped baby in a pumpkin patch. Eli V. Rahm is a queer writer from Virginia. They’ve attended workshops such as the Berlin Writers Workshop, the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, the Tin House Winter Workshop, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Eli’s work is featured in Sugar House Review, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, The Cortland Review, and The Academy of American Poets, among others. They also have a cat named Bagel.