H. Melt is a poet, artist and educator whose work celebrates trans people, history and culture. In THERE ARE TRANS PEOPLE HERE, they bring us an unapologetic, abolitionist collection of poetry that reimagines trans futures, and pays tribute to trans liberation history and movements. There are trans people here in the past, the present, and the future. H. Melt's writing centers the deep care, love, and joy within trans communities.This poetry collection describes moments of resistance in queer and trans history as catalysts for movements today. It honors trans ancestors and contemporary activists, artists, and writers fighting for trans liberation. THERE ARE TRANS PEOPLE HERE includes a study guide for trans youth, educators, and artists, encouraging us all to not only educate ourselves but educate others. H. Melt joins Busboys on screen to delve into their work and give us some insight into their inspiration.
H. Melt is also the author of The Plural, The Blurring and editor of Subject to Change: Trans Poetry & Conversation. H. Melt was an artist in residence at the Newberry Library, researching the Chicago Protest Collection. They've attended the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat and the Tin House Writers Workshop. THERE ARE TRANS PEOPLE HERE includes a study guide for trans youth, educators, and artists, available for free online through Haymarket Books.
This event is free and open to all, accessible through our Facebook and Youtube pages (@busboysandpoets).
The program will begin at 6 PM with an introduction from a member of our team.There will be time for Q&A with the audience before the end of the program, and you can purchase a copy of THERE ARE TRANS PEOPLE HERE. Copies of the book are available for purchase through Eventbrite before, during, and after the program.
We recommend that viewers RSVP in order to receive direct links to the event from Busboys and Poets Books.
Reviews for THERE ARE TRANS PEOPLE HERE:
"H. Melt's matter-of-fact, precise, cartographic poems perform necessary care work for the trans people and places they attend to and yearn toward. Deeply grounded in the plain, bountiful fact of trans worlds--and insisting on our worlds to come--this book offers all who need it a map to a world 'forever in bloom.'"
--Cameron Awkward-Rich, author of Dispatch
"There Are Trans People Here is an ode to trans joy, resilience, and communal care. A trans-utopian manifesto for a world that 'let[s] us be beautiful / on our own terms.' Melt's verse is bold, stark, and uncompromising. Threading elements of familial narrative, memoir, and queer history, they trace through-lines from our past to a brighter, queerer future."
--torrin a. greathouse, author of Wound From The Mouth Of A Wound
"These poems meld individual resilience with collective resistance to illuminate the everyday beauty of trans lives in refusing the lure of conditional inclusion to instead challenge dominant institutions of oppression, demand structural change, and remake the world."
--Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of The Freezer Door
