Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry
Dani Putney’s debut poetry collection, Salamat sa Intersectionality, is a lyrical triptych that traces the evolution of the speaker’s identity as a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, & neurodivergent individual. Each “panel” of the speaker’s life represents a distinct period of growth: a youthful beginning, which features important interactions with the speaker’s parents; a sexually charged middle period that demonstrates the speaker’s explorations of queer sexuality; & a contemplative third section wherein the speaker reckons with their various “selves.” Imagery of the American West percolates through the collection to ground the speaker in their intersectional identity.
Get your copy from Okay Donkey Press
Also available at select bookstores: Sundance Books and Music in Reno, NV; Powell’s Books in Portland, OR; Friendly City Books in Columbus, MS; & Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, NY
Salamat sa Intersectionality as [Universe]
BOOK AS [GENDER]: ALL. Every drip of gender-water in the leaky faucets of humanity. Every thriving gender-weed in the cracks of asphalt along I-40. It infects people as a gender-parasite, allowing them to view themselves as they truly are: genderful selves. It releases spores into every metro system across America, awakening gender-weirdness in each passenger.
BOOK AS [MAN]: ERROR.
BOOK AS [WOMAN]: ERROR.
BOOK AS [PERSON]. A flamboyant cowboy à la Orville Peck, fringed mask & all—glitter, floral buds, & rays of sunshine contained in every orifice of their being. They don BDSM-style chaps & spurs because fashion doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t simultaneously fun. They kiss all the pretty boys crisscrossing the country, love all the truckers weary from capitalism.
BOOK AS [LOVER]. Soft but rough, giving but yearning. They trace the curve of their partner’s waist with their tongue & ask “How do you feel?” after every minute of pleasure. They hold their partner post-climax & drip honey into their ear.
BOOK AS [INSECT]. A potato bug, the most beautiful-ugly tuber consumer in America’s gardens. It dashes across tomatoes & eggplants in the bacchanalian spirit of its nightly feast. It bites any human who tries to pick it up, not in self-defense but in spite.
BOOK AS [MONSTER]. A rougarou with purple fur, royalty of the swamp. It sucks on the blood of normies, those individuals foolish enough to believe in binaries. It transforms each victim into a rougarou of their own—more nonhuman creatures to roam the wilderness.
BOOK AS [COLOR]: KALEIDOSCOPIC. People get lost in all the pretty edges. Faithful observers withdraw from the viewfinder blinded by the intersecting rainbows. The most loyal followers become rainbows themselves.
BOOK AS [SIGN]: DERRIDEAN. It confuses readers, telling them to dissolve their brains into mush because intellectualism is no longer needed. It spouts words like “deconstruct” & “primordial ooze” but doesn’t elaborate. It collapses under its tenuous foundation & returns to the soil as detritus.
BOOK AS [BODY]: ERROR.
BOOK AS [BODIES]: ALL. They writhe in a circle of desire. They touch each other freely & lovingly. They function both individually & as a whole, a network of independence-&-togetherness.
BOOK AS [HOPE]. It rests on the tongue like a spoonful of sugar. The sodium chloride compound is laced with Aries fire & burns every taste bud.
BOOK AS [ME]. Let it be.
Dani Putney 