WINNER OF THE 2022 RICK CAMPBELL CHAPBOOK AWARD
Halsey Hyer’s [deadname] is a poetic tour de force describing the trans experience. When Boy first has their period, goes up a bra size, and later suffers a miscarriage, readers find themselves in a tableau of binary language only this poet can fuse back together. Hyer dares us — then double dares us — to rethink gender through these exquisite, sometimes funny, and always tender poems. — Denise Duhamel

[deadname] by Halsey Hyer takes us into the trap of gender and the freedom of blurring, joining, shifting, and demolishing. Whose idea was this, anyway, this stiff categorization, this restriction? Hyer enacts the blurring in lines of punch and rhythm: He lights up his pussy/with a junk drawer flashlight ... and the brutality of transition in direct voice: ... Why/do I even bother/to eat? These poems erupt with collisions of robo-dicks, miscarriage, T-shots — tough and hard-won. — Jan Beatty

Boy Rejects Girl
after Aaron Smith
He never wanted frilly socks or velvet dresses
& puffy sleeves to be his church clothes, or to go to church at all.
He never wanted praise for his dainty, his docile, his cute.
He never thought he’d grow tits like his sister
or mom & when he did, he was pissed. He threw fits
in Walmart dressing rooms as 32A turned to 34B to 34C to 36D.
The hormone pill he wanted wasn’t that mix
of estrogen & progesterone. He never wanted
the hair on his head to be longer than the hair on his body
or to collect Nair, wax strips, razors, or shaving cream
to remove it all. He never wanted blood to come
from anywhere other than an open wound, or blisters
from high heeled open toe shoes. He never wanted to lose
his friends in middle school when everyone found out he liked girls,
or for them to replace [deadname] w/ dyke or faggot.
He never wanted to be the one to ask for the Sadie Hawkins dance.
When asked to prom, he said yes then threw the bouquet in the trash,
in front of his date, day of. He never wanted to arch his back
or curl his toes screaming loud to fake an O. He never wanted to say yes
when he meant no. He never wanted acrylics glued on at nail salons
or to coat his lashes w/ clumpy mascara & line his lips
& sing Hannah Montana into a hairbrush.
He never wanted to be the pink Power Ranger
or to prove himself by arm wrestling the real boys.
He never listened when he was told not to spit
or cared when his panties showed when he’d sit w/ his legs spread wide