WANT
a rare all-caps title appears
WANT is a poetry chapbook that has been brewing for a while, in the sense that i’ve always said it should have been obvious to me at a much younger age that i was queer. this is mostly based on my conformity to various queer stereotypes that i didn’t realize at the time. the collection is an exploration of these moments and memories, and how they still managed to shape me regardless.
i came out later in life, and in a way, writing WANT was like discovering my own queer childhood for the first time. many of these memories also immortalize core aspects of my personality, which i now realize were always inextricable from the ways in which i am queer. these poems are a true, pure expression of myself in a way that a lot of my other work doesn’t quite touch.
selected works
“a bad gay guard” and “your kiss” in JAKE
“tumblr knew” in MEMEZINE
“cheerleader handwriting” and “disclosure” in ink&ivy lit
praise for WANT
“This is a collection with elbows out. It doesn’t ask or beg for you to love it, it knows that it is lovable as it claims space, identity, and basks in our readership. Everything about WANT nailed the tight-rope-journey between luxuriously risky and a cozy homecoming. The speaker knows who they are, what they deserve, and how much they have to give to those around them. A delight to read, it will both fill you with yearning and the feeling of being completely satisfied.” —Bleah Patterson, author of THE INFLUENCERS ARE GASLIGHTING US
“Who were you when you knew you best? nat raum’s collection WANT explores the draft versions of the self through queer adolescence, how the pieces are all there but may not have the language to call itself home yet. Through a kaleidoscope of girls prep school uniforms, playground jaunts and taunts, and the colloquial charm of modern meme culture, a vision of youth being genderless and moving towards something unknown but also deeply known unfolds. This collection is a reclamation of the identifying language lost to every queer child before they knew there was even a name for themselves, a reclamation of the body lost to centuries of boy/girl. raum dances with gender, fluidity evident in every aspect, from form to flow, from one end of the spectrum down to the other, in rhythm with all that lies in between and beyond. An enchanting and vulnerable dissection of the body as concrete as well as abstract, WANT gets to the core of the thing; that before all the identity politics and the gendered names bestowed to us at birth and the clothing and toys that determine who we are to the people who don't know us, we always know ourselves best. But that’s a conversation for nat raum and you.” —Kayla Renee, author of Baby Grand
WANT is available for print purchase from ink&ivy lit.