More Sure by A. Light Zachary
CBC Books | Posted: February 27, 2023 2:19 PM | Last Updated: February 27, 2023
A debut poetry collection about queerness and neurodivergence
In their stunning debut collection, A. Light Zachary draws power from a vision of life - especially queer and neurodivergent life - as a journey of continuous self-realization. These poems record the experience of locating oneself over and over again, within gender, language, family, labour, sexuality, fear, and love.
Reaching back to claim queer space in the oldest Western canon, Zachary interrupts famous quotations from ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, asking: what advice might Juvenal or Seneca have handed down to non-binary citizens? Elsewhere, in concise and fluid verses that draw from punk rock and quantum physics, they ground the work firmly in the present. Come: invade with the alien. Evade with the coyote. These poems propose a certain supremacy: in these unending journeys of discovery and alienation, "we become more sure of who we are than you." (From Arsenal Pulp Press)
A. Light Zachary is a writer, editor and teacher living in Toronto and Grande-Digue, N.B. More Sure is their debut poetry collection. Zachary was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize for their poems Two Girls and Why bury yourself in this place you ask.