The Choice Is Real Jayson Keery’s debut poetry collection, is now available for pre-order!

Challenging the conventions of how queer and trans people are encouraged to tell their stories, The Choice is Real engages the concept of choice in queerness and trivializes the linear “born-this-way” narratives that queer people are sold.

 

Praise

“A debut in name only, The Choice is Real is a testament to what utter magic can occur when a poet makes of the line an altar to study and quest from. Sure-footed, sorcerous and tender in its ferocity, this is one of the most impressive and unforgettable first books I’ve read in years.”
— Ocean Vuong, author of Time Is a Mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, and more

“In myriad forms and with etched lines, this book is in a constant state of becoming. Jayson Keery is a truly exciting poet. What a great debut. The details are entirely real.”
— Peter Gizzi, author of Now It’s Dark, Sky Burial, Archeophonics, and more

“Occasioned by the loss of three mothers, Jayson Keery returns in these poems to the scenes of their girlhood, grappling with how it is that we, because of and despite everything, become. In particular, and against the pervasive, structuring idea that children have no bodies”—no desire, no right to choose their lives—The Choice Is Real insists on the queerness of childhood. Its strangeness. Its perversity. Its persistent deformation of Disney-scripted grids of gender. At once flippant and grief-struck, guarded and tender, heady and viscerally felt, Keery’s debut collection is a forceful reminder of the magic that happens wherever queer/trans children grow.”
— Cameron Awkward-Rich, author of The Terrible We, Dispatch, Sympathetic, Little Monster, and more

“Dedicated ‘to those forced to prove it,’ this is queer celebration! Jayson Keery is one of my favorite living poets, and I am so glad you found this book to celebrate its magnificent poetry!”
— CAConrad, author of You Don’t Have What It Takes to Be My Nemesis, Amanda Paradise, While Standing in Line for Death, and more

“I’m excited and in awe of how this book wields Keery’s marvelous talent.”
— Fariha Róisín, author of Who Is Wellness for?, Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost