We Want It All

“'shit, what the hell/ have I built,' writes Zavé Gayatri Martohardjono in a poem featured in this exciting and frank anthology of works by trans writers…This anthology imagines poetry as a resource by which the community might stand 'against capital and empire,' using language to reimagine collective struggle."—Publishers Weekly

"We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat Books, October 2020), edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel, engages and interrogates poetry as a means of trans liberation. Offerings from poets such as Ching-In Chen and Aaron El Sabrout 'pursue the particular and multiple trans relationships to desire, embodiment, housing, sex, ecology, history, pop culture, and the working day.'"—Poets & Writers: The Anthologist

"If there’s one thing I can get behind, it’s more trans voices and/or gender fuckery in literature, always. This stunner of an anthology brings together an intergenerational mix of poets who expertly write/graffiti on that (imaginary) line of the personal and the political by exploring love, work, bodies, social justice movements, rage, tenderness, and pop culture. With creativity and insight, the poems in this collection are truly a rich tapestry that belongs on the shelf next to editor Christopher Soto’s Neplantla: Queer Poets of Color (which was also released by Nightboat, thank you Nightboat!)."—Sarah Neilson, Literary Hub's Bookmarks

"Groundbreaking and urgent, this collection features poems that investigate, interrogate and innovate trans relationships, embodiments, ecologies, emotions and expressions. It shines a much-needed light on the power of poetics in care, understanding and resistance."—Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine

"This is an incredible and necessary collection of work that celebrates queerness and queer identity. The editors put it succinctly, stating in the introduction, 'The title of this volume is therefore entirely literal. What we want is nothing other than a world in which everything belongs to everyone.'"—Joanna C. Valente, Luna Luna Magazine

“Reading Sensoria alongside We Want It All proved fruitful, even at the outset both introductions set up the parameters: Wark wants us to consider the production of theory as an end in itself: ‘a free and self-directed inquiry that takes its own time.’ Contrast this with Abi-Karam and Gabriel’s intro: ‘We believe that poetry can do things that theory can’t, that poetry leaps into what theory tends towards.’ I felt myself rewarding myself with a poem from the anthology after I got through a chapter of Sensoria, and each poem brought with it a direct or indirect correspondence.”—A conversation between Emily Colucci and Jessica Caroline, Filthy Dreams

"The editors present this anthology as an experiment: how far can literature written and/or collected from a standpoint of identity. We see a new language and a new form to express the desire to shake the American public out of its lethargy. We see courage here as the writers face suffering. Pain is singular yet it reaches its targets one at a time. We live at a time of indifference and here we are reminded that each one of us is somehow responsible for everything that is done."—Amos Lassen