Gephyromania by T.C. Tolbert

Gephyromania Reviews

• 
  Grace Greggory Hughes

  “Born and raised a girl in a small town in Tennessee as a speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal before coming out as queer, feminist, anti-racist, and trans-masc.” Gephyromania (meaning an obsession with bridges) is the poet’s bridge marking the space between what was and what is.
  
  

  Once upon a time a line saw itself
  clear to its end. I have seen the shape
  of happiness. (y=mx+b)
  I am holding it. It is your hand.
  
  ‘What Space Faith Can Occupy’
  – TC Tolbert, Gephyromania

  
  
  This is memorable work. There is so much in these pages, some of it quite difficult and violent to read, but the careful use of form, language, and punctuation work to create emotional distance where that is needed, and then bring us smoothly into a closer confidence when the need for distance passes.
  
  In addition to this volume of poems, Tolbert has curated a trove of poetry resources for a project called Trans/Space: Trans, Non-binary, and Queer+ Poetry.
  (T+ENBY+Q+) poetry that is well worth your time in looking up and browsing through.
• 
  Greg Bem

  I felt my insides reconverge after long moments of loneliness in their previous sad opinions, the waves of the textures of the air from the breath of the language shuddering me, calming me, thrust to the sky of daylight and pregnant night.
• 
  Maja

  Beautiful sensitivity and strong lines, but maybe I lacked references (or simply put was too stupid) to understand it in its full scope.
• 
  Emily Polson

  "I keep thinking I want to
  fall in love with you but love
  is so much constancy and.
  
  
  

  I is so many words."
• 
  Shilo

  I literally do not know how to review this book but it built a bridge to my heart. 🖤🔥
• 
  Tori Welhouse

  What a maestro of language!
• 
  Anna

  "I know this like I know you are more lonely than glass."
• 
  Joe

  "our music undone periscopically
  the pornography remains inexhaustible.
  a white flag fading at the root."
  
  "She remembers that there are names, kinder names,
  for the accidental bruising left by witness. And
  sedulous in her canter these are illegible. With a mouth
  full of tinder."
  
  "If the theory
  is that misogyny is throat culture. For
  people with mothers. I take it back. I have
  to give it to you. But, first. I take it back."
  
  "Now that you are dead I can say this. Somehow I ended up with your hand towels."
  
  Enjoyed through and through--a collection of echoes, causeways, harsh interruptions, and folds. Got me thinking a lot about the relationship between memory and gender.
• 
  Rob Hendricks

  "Because gender is syntax, personified," it is syntax especially from which Tolbert makes art. "Pound, whatever." Tolbert raises the stakes. Not just to "make it new," but to "cultivate disparation."
• 
  Will

  An innovative and challenging work. Tolbert's poems were true to the author and left much for the reader to figure out.