Bough Breaks

The poetic sequence bough breaks sets out to interrogate queer motherhood, implications of gender, and the politics of adoption. Traveling across terrains (New York, Bangkok, Honolulu, Tokyo) and time (from the speaker's childhood to an imagined future that holds or does not hold an adopted child) the poem teases apart the idea of conception. Queer in content and form, this fiercely feminist yet tenderly personal poem takes on the lullaby-lyric of parenthood to lay claim, surprise, and engage. Kazim Ali says: "In a trance-driven lineage of serious thinkers which include the likes of Myung Mi Kim, Jessica Grim, and Bruna Mori, Tamiko Beyer does not separate the experience of a gendered body from genres of thought. This writing lies down between poetry and theory and makes a bed there, a bed of textured experience and fabulous rhythms."