Splendor: Trans Poets Book Launch
Translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis read from Splendor: Trans Poets alongside original poems from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi
In celebration of Splendor: Trans Poets (September 1, Two Lines Press), Green Apple Books on the Park is hosting a trans poetry night featuring the work of Québécois poet Pascale Bérubé, read by her translators Andrew Wilson and Jana Vourgourakis. Their readings from the collection will be complemented by readings from Alexis N. Garcia and Mukethe Kawinzi, as well as an introduction from Sarah Coolidge, editor of Splendor and of the Calico series from Two Lines Press.
About Splendor: Trans Poets
Introducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics.
Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.”
“I love this book, every page of it! We need more poetry, more celebration for trans lives between the bullets and bloodshed, which is also in here, the endless funerals of those taken down by heterosexual violence! When I started reading this collection, I could not stop and missed a meeting, but meetings can be rescheduled. What we cannot reschedule is the experience of reading a book without pause until it becomes your favorite anthology!” —CAConrad, author of First Light
About Read Trans Poets: A Community Event Series in Celebration of Splendor
To celebrate the release of Splendor: Trans Poets on September 1, Two Lines Press invited bookstores across the US and internationally to organize creative readings and events that feature trans and nonbinary poets. This book launch in San Francisco is one of twelve “authorless tour” events taking place throughout the months of September and October to uplift trans voices and build international trans solidarity through poetry. See the full tour schedule here.
Jana Vourgourakis has been a museum educator at BAMPFA and has studied art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and literature at SUNY Buffalo. She is currently co-translating Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther with Andrew Wilson. She enjoys exploring narrative and probability by collaborating on James Bond fanfiction with AI. In her spare time, she likes to eat cake.
Andrew Wilson is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently affiliated with the Center for Literary Translation at Trinity College, Dublin, as a creative practitioner. His published translations include works by Sébastien Brebel, Bruce Bégout, Antoine Volodine, and Pacôme Thiellement. He is currently working (with Jana Vourgourakis) on a translation of Olivier Bruneau’s sci-fi novel Esther.
Alexis N. Garcia is a t-boy poet & educator dreaming against the state. Their cross-discipline experiments glitch traditional poetic form to construct trans time & non-linear meaning-making. Their poems and hybrid experiments have been featured in The Hopkins Review, Poem-A-Day, beestung, Apogee Journal, The Slowdown, and The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNext, among others. He has received fellowships from The Outpost Foundation, Jack Jones Literary Arts, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. Garcia’s first book, IN MY FANTASY, I BELONG, is forthcoming from Host Publications in March 2027. When they aren’t teaching, you can find them at their local library or tending to a heart-shaped hummingbird feeder on their balcony.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.