Glamourpuss by Cat Fitzpatrick

Glamourpuss Reviews

• 
  Charles Theonia

  Trans self-making is fraught with cis people’s associations of deception and the desire they project onto us: our transexual prime directive to leave the past behind and enter an unrippled state of always-having been, by any means necessary.
  
  But we each have at least one self, and of course we shape them. Cat Fitzpatrick’s funny, cutting, eminently-readable and minutely-crafted poems in Glamourpuss set out to examine how.
  
  The emotional, though not always chronological, arc of the book moves from isolation, making-the-self alone, to connection, making it with others. It's a disavowal of the self-love tenet that first you must learn to stand yourself; only then will others love you. Fitzpatrick looks for the self everywhere, at the club and in nature, in scraps of community and desirability, and finds it by looking backwards through more than a decade of poems (and Lynn Conway’s now-archived website TS Successes) about how the relationships we form with others make it possible for us to imagine ourselves.
  
• 
  Liza

  I read this all in one sitting, very readable poetry. It totally swept me along with it, raw and honest. I was lucky enough to see Cat perform on the Never Mind the Hormones tour and her energy is incredible. I prefer watching her perform to reading her work BUT it's good work and I am excited to read more of her stuff.
• 
  Kariniix

  I've been trying to pick up books that will give a story I would otherwise not have access to. As a very white, very straight woman this book of poetry seemed like a right choice. It is a very personal book. I could even recognize myself in some passages but I enjoyed most educating myself on the differences.
  
  I loved the honest words, the bluntness of it. Cat isn't hiding her experience, it's all out on the table.
• 
  Brook

  I have no real insight into poetry, and have read very little, but ever since I got to listen to Cat read from her poems in a book group, I was stoked. Such awesome verse, such style and grace. I love these poems when they're pissed off, English as fuck, and raw. Cat shines a light on trans life in a way few have. Thank you.
• 
  Emma

  Amazing, beautiful, hilarious, wrenching.
  Highlights for me were:
  "Six Women I'm Not: meditations on having sex with straight men who don't know you're trans whilst pretending to be a literary character"--particularly "Penelope", as if a Romantic painting came to life with modern wit.
  "California Encomia" cycle (do six poems make a cycle?). The narrative feature of the poetry in these poems, and throughout, is just so engaging. Is roadtrip poetry a thing? Why not. And the wonderfully captured personalities of the other trans girls in the car, the scene of entering the truck stop, it's just all so vibrant.
  and "Ubi Sunt:
  www.lynnconway.com/tssuccesses". Sometimes you read a thing that feels as if it was plucked from your memory and written just for you.
• 
  Sassafras Lowrey

  I'm pretty much always game for queer/trans writing so this was no exception.
• 
  Anna

  Some of this poetry I really enjoyed but mostly I didn't really connect with the writing style unfortunately. Probably a 2.5