The Choice Is Real

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

Awards

Winner – The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors
2021 – Poetry – Judged by Fariha Róisín

Press

The Miramichi Reader – “Highlighting my favourite lines was difficult—every page rapidly became almost entirely yellow. I couldn’t devour The Choice Is Real quickly enough, and strongly recommend it to readers interested in the mythologies and magic of queerness […] This new release by Montreal’s Metatron Press is one of the strongest in their catalogue and one of my favourite poetry books of the year.”

The Montreal Review of Books – “Jayson Keery’s collection is weird, experimental, captivating […] At every moment Keery’s poetics are inventive, gripping, perspective-shifting.”

rob mcclennan – 12 or 20 questions with Jayson Keery – “The Choice Is Real is in many ways trying the resist the question of choice in queerness. Queer and trans people are pressured into writing narratives that justify the idea that their queerness is not a choice, often leaning into the born-this-way assertion. My book is kind of like, Who cares? Why be so focused on justifying how we got here as opposed to focusing on the fact that we are here?”

Jayson Keery

Jayson Keery is a writer, editor, and arts coordinator from Boston who currently resides in Western Massachusetts. They completed their MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are the author of The Choice is Real (Metatron Press, 2023) and the chapbook Astroturf (o•blēk editions, edited by Peter Gizzi, 2022). Their work is published and forthcoming in Hot Pink, Boulevard, Black Warrior Review, Overheard, The New Guard, b l u s h lit, Peach Mag, and others. They have been anthologized in Nightboat Books’ We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics and Pilot Press London’s A Queer Anthology of Rage. They are the recipient of the 2022 Metatron Press Prize for Rising Authors, selected by Fariha Róisín, and the 2021 Daniel and Merrily Glosband MFA Fellowship, selected by Wendy Xu. They were the runner-up for the Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award, selected by Diana Khoi Nguyen.