Grand Tour, the debut collection of poetry by Elisa Gonzalez, dramatizes the mind in motion as it grapples with something more than an event: she writes of a whole life, to transcendent effect. In her debut collection God Themselves, Jae Nichelle taps into her experiences of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman to courageously confront the effects of a forced religion and the inherent dangers of living life in a female body. Marisa Siegel (Fixed Stars) moderates a conversation between these exciting debut poets.

Elisa Gonzalez’s thrilling debut makes one “feel as if poems have never before been written” (Louise Glück). Grand Tour, the debut collection of poetry by Elisa Gonzalez, dramatizes the mind in motion as it grapples with something more than an event: she writes of a whole life, to transcendent effect. By the end, we feel we have been witness to a poet remaking herself. Gonzalez’s poetry depicts the fullness of living. There are the small moments: “white wine greening in a glass,” trumpet blossoms “panicking across the garden.” Some poems adopt the oracular quality of a parable but invariably refuse a clear moral. The poet moves through elegy, romantic and sexual encounters, family history, and place—Cyprus, Puerto Rico, Poland, Ohio—all constellated in “a chaos of faraway.” The collection is held together less by answers than by a persistent question: How doe you reconcile a hatred for the world’s pain with a love for that same world, which is indivisible from its worst aspects? Gonzalez’s poems draw us nearer to our own aliveness, its fragility and sustaining questions. “Since I do love the world,” she says, she keeps writing, inviting us to accompany her as she searches.

“This vivid, searching début collection traverses and troubles borders between nations, languages, lovers, the past and the present, the living and the dead; combining reflections on art and history with astute observations of everyday life, Gonzalez contends with the world’s capacity for profound suffering and for near-unbearable beauty in equal measure.”
—The New Yorker

Let this book be a celebration of queerness, Blackness, and love. Let these words be a modern church, these poems a holy space. Rising star and spoken word poet Jae Nichelle debuts her luminous thoughts in God Themselves, a new collection of stirring poetry. Nichelle taps into her experiences of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman to courageously confront the effects of a forced religion and the inherent dangers of living life in a female body. God Themselves is divided into three equally moving sections: Everything, Everywhere, and Love. Nichelle braids her wisdom––as seen in the poem “What to Do When There’s Nothing You Can Do”––and witty generational humor––seen in “Sanctity: An Exposé”––into every poem. If you’ve ever contemplated who, what, and where God is, find comfort in these words.

“Nichelle’s experience of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman is relayed to luminous effect in this collection, which dives deep into the effects of religious trauma and suggests a less-fraught, more individual relationship with the divine.”—Emma Specter, Vogue

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