The Vulnerable Ferocity of "this book will not save you" (Poetry Review)

mk zariel

Content warning: this book discusses institutionalization, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, and trauma; this review alludes to such topics.

Click the cover image to purchase “this book will not save you” from dogleech books.

The collection begins not with a poem, but with a disclaimer: “this book will blindfold you, reveal you nose-to-nose / with yourself, and whisper good luck before it skitters into the abyss.” From the first page, it is sentient, conflictual — describing the intimacy of confrontation, of self-discovery, of knowing that “this book will not show you alternate / realities” because base reality is already rife with pain and desire and queer belonging. Traditional poetry is meant to be interpreted and analyzed; this book, however, fights back.

Out in 2024 on indie press dogleech books, a project of moth eaten mag, nat raum’s this book will not save you is an ode to queer dissolution and becoming. raum, a poet, photographer, trans liberationist, and editor-in-chief at fifth wheel press, has published many a chapbook and zine, but this is their most high-profile full-length work yet, and it primarily focuses on their experience as someone with a pathologized personality. Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (a community they now identify with) and often navigating ableism and mental health struggles, raum uses poetry to process their truth and their trauma, creating a full-length poetry collection that is radically queer and deeply painful and intensely full of purpose.

Barely a few pages into the first section, raum addresses and externalizes trauma as a living being:

my inner child cries a lot—
they emerge from slumber too
often and wrap their body in heavy
saline rain spilling forth from eyes,
bottomless.

Creating a character both abject and bold, raum stakes out an inherently queer territory, drawing on the ethic of liminality that comes through in their photography zines — many of which focus on everyday or liminal spaces — and prior poetry collections. In the coming poems, they frame transness as a form of rebirth, advancing the imagery of childhood by using it as an allegory for personal growth, eventually describing themself as “queer as in / i don’t understand how i used / to live life without cotton / candy and baby blue blinders.” They frame queerness as an alternative to personhood or easy labels, defining themself only as “a genderless ghost seeking revenge.” Occasionally, they critique the format of poetry as digital media, as in the all-too-relatable line “today i wrote it’s almost fall, y’all / in a newsletter and i was not ready for how / soon my body would recoil.” But the core of their poetry is not cultural criticism but an inward eye. Using depersonalization and even out-of-body experiences to describe becoming, this collection is not only radically queer but vulnerable.

This text is remarkable not only due to the way it sensitively addresses challenging and even traumatic themes but also because of its use of visceral and almost synesthetic imagery. In an era when the “demure” is valorized online and even some poetry spaces prize subtlety over the authentic, raum refuses all posturing and instead writes in a liminal and deeply anchored way. Their poems are almost always themed around embodiment and the psychosomatic, dissolving any supposed boundary between the body and the mind and showing that poetry is an embodied practice rather than an arbitrary intellectual exercise. As a result, this book will not save you may not be especially radical in its themes — especially in a context where almost every queer poetry collection on an indie press has anarchist themes — but it is fiercely liberatory in its delivery.

The later sections of this book will not save you explore rawness and vulnerability not through the language of gender, representation, and identity but through the lens of desire. In “may 7” raum imagines a discordant mismatch of desires, a fleeting lust that only spells alienation for those experiencing it:

i am not the same breed
as his brand of lust, and i am not the same
since he strong-armed me. i wish i were
temporary, or maybe i wish he was—

They go on to describe a longing to be loved without a sense of limitation or boundedness, a need to be understood and cared for rather than objectified. Soon describing the joyous surrender of marginalization and their desire to “dive headlong / into the void where gender goes to dissolve,” they go on to glorify every flaw that makes them perfectly trans and alive. One poem lists their regrets; another focuses on their journey of trying new pronouns. Another describes joy as a conscious alternative to harm and control. Eventually, they cite an adage that defines many of their decisions: “you’ll either / wake up tomorrow and know this is a mistake /or you’ll feel just fine”–and almost immediately after, launch into an instantly relatable parody email about being the only trans person in their workplace.

Where the early stages of this book are declamatory and often searing, the end drips with biting irony coupled with a strikingly soft vulnerability. However, the entirety of nat raum’s this book will not save you is not only nonbinary in its approach to gender but also in its poetic strategy. Writing at the intersection of the bold and the emotional, raum articulates the core of the trans experience: Rather than being political footballs or being solely defined by resistance to bigotry, we have both voices and needs, social movements and the struggles that make them necessary. In an era of rampant activist burnout, the message of making space for both emotional states is even more relevant, showing that we can all be “queer as in / fuck that, my rays can stretch / so much further than his mind / can imagine.”

mk zariel {it/its} is a transmasculine poet, theater artist, movement journalist, & insurrectionary anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. it can be found online at https://linktr.ee/mkzariel, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.