Hardly Creatures
Poems
Zando · Print & ebook · May 20, 2025
Winner—Chicago Review of Books “CHIRBy” Award for Poetry “Dazzling. . . .
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- An accessible art-museum form makes room for inventive poems about disability, access, queer love, and friendship.
- Themes
- Disability community, Access intimacy, Queer love and deep friendship
- Genres
- LGBTQ+ Poetry, American Poetry
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
We Contain LandscapesPatrycja Humienik55% matchShares LGBTQ+ Poetry
The Trembling HandMathelinda Nabugodi51% match
Archive of DesireRobin Coste Lewis53% matchShares LGBTQ+ Poetry
Dialogue With a SomnambulistChloe Aridjis52% match
Little MercyRobin Walter58% matchShares American Poetry
Regaining UnconsciousnessHarryette Mullen49% matchShares American Poetry
The Diaspora SonnetsOliver De La Paz48% matchShares American Poetry
EcstasyAlex Dimitrov48% matchShares LGBTQ+ Poetry
For younger readers: Disability Visibility (adapted for Young Adults), Continuum, Bless the Blood
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
Winner—Chicago Review of Books “CHIRBy” Award for Poetry “Dazzling. . . . An extraordinary document in care, mutual aid, and access.”—Claudia Rankine An imaginative and unforgettable debut poetry collection about the joys and complexities of the disability community from 2024 Ruth Lilly fellow Rob Macaisa Colgate. Brilliant and innovative, Rob Macaisa Colgate’s debut poetry collection, Hardly Creatures, takes the form—visually and metaphorically—of an accessible art museum.
Continue reading
Through nine sections that act as gallery rooms, the book shepherds the reader through the radiance and mess of the disability community. At the heart of the collection is an exploration and recognition of access intimacy. Marked with universal access symbols to guide the way, poems mimic sensory rooms, tactile replicas, benches for resting, and more; “the body of a poem” itself is reimagined through formal experimentation, as abecedarians are scrambled out of order and sestinas are pressurized into new sequences. These poems also play with pop culture allusions, social media posts, and the infinite possibilities within queer love and deep friendships. With lyrical clarity and attention to language, Hardly Creatures reaches out and offers inventive, heartfelt insights for all readers, and celebrates the disability community through the lens of a visionary new voice in poetry.
Poems as Rooms
An accessible art-museum form makes room for inventive poems about disability, access, queer love, and friendship.
Come here for
- Poetic experiments that reshape familiar forms
- A tender, unsentimental look at access and mutual care
Expect
- Nine gallery-like sections, with sensory and tactile motifs
- Pop culture, social media, and formal play in the mix
Where it sits
| LGBTQ+ Poetry | 95% |
|---|---|
| American Poetry | 31% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Asian American Poetry
- LGBTQ+ Poetry
- Poetry - General Themes
- Authors
- Rob Macaisa Colgate
- Publisher
- Zando
- Published
- May 20, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Disability community · Access intimacy · Queer love and deep friendship
- Reading lane
- Asian American Poetry