Jefferson County Library: Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology Edited By Wendy & Tyler Chin-Tanner

Press release from the Jefferson County Library:

Julia Johns

September 22, 2021

Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology edited by Wendy & Tyler Chin-Tanner - 200 pages"Poetry and comics collide in this intersectional feminist anthology featuring twenty-one stories that explore the relationship between gender, identity and the body. A diverse array of award-winning contemporary poets and comic book artists who identify as cis women, trans, and non-binary, work together to create sequential art poems showcasing the relevance, urgency, and power of both genres.Mystical, rooted, painful, joyous, and ecstatic; visions of the body, our genders, and our very identities from across the spectrum of contemporary poetry come together in this monumental intersectional feminist anthology where verse and comics unite in spectacular new ways."I love this anthology for uplifting the voices of people whose stories often go unheard. It's definitely a timely work. I appreciated the foreword and study guide that were included as they were thought provoking, helping me to look at each poem and comic strip duo from multiple perspectives. I didn't connect with every poem in the anthology, but that's only natural. I really loved "Rubble Girl" by Jean Givhan and "Tapestry" by Khaty Xiong and liked quite a few others, as well. Also, I'm obsessed with this book on a craft level. The marriage of poetry and comics is truly groundbreaking. I'm intimately familiar with poetry, so it was fascinating to see what elements a comic strip format brought to each piece. The visuals were able to demonstrate more than words which aided storytelling; Poetry leaves a lot unsaid, and the comic strips (literally) filled in the blanks. However, the original, visual format of a poem—line break, stanza break, indentation, etc.—is often critical to the understanding of a piece, so they lost something as well. I'm not at all familiar with comics on a craft level, and as I was going through this book, I found myself wishing I knew more about the choices the artists made. I felt like I was missing out on a deeper appreciation. But regardless, I want to own this book just for the mere fact that the artwork is so stunning. 

This press release was produced by the Jefferson County Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.