Highly lyrical, the poems-which arguably are one poem, broken into 60 parts-do not trace a clear narrative, relying on repeated motifs to ground the reader. feeld refuses to be anything but its own invention of itself. As a trans writer, writing a trans experience, Charles contends, through this masterful, strange, and intelligent collection, that any language that is not transformative, not revolutionary, not calling attention to itself as an act of defiance and beauty, falls short. The reading never got easy, the spelling never grew familiar, the work always effortful of course, that is Charles’s point. However, I try to be game when a book invites me to confront my own limitations and privileges as a reader and a person, so I pushed through my discomfort. I turned to the first poem and said to myself, “Wait, is the whole book going to be like this?” “Like this” being a Chaucerian spelling of English (you’d think the title would have given me a clue, but reader, I’m often oblivious).

When I picked up Jos Charles’s feeld, I knew nothing about it, aside from the praise for it wafting through the poetry internet. Reviewed: feeld by Jos Charles (Milkweed Editions, 2018). The Meter Reader: Jos Charles's feeld 'reveals familiarity is a con'Īmie Whittemore, with editorial support from James Ascher Aracelis Girmay, Cathy Park Hong & Natalie Scenters-Zapico.Marina Benjamin, Jill Kolongowski & Vedran Husic.Urgent and vital, feeld composes a new narrative of what it means to live inside a marked body. 'gendre is not the tran organe / gendre is yes a hemorage.' 'did u kno not a monthe goes bye / a tran i kno doesnt dye.' The world of feeld is our own, but off-kilter, distinctly queer-making visible what was formerly and forcefully hidden: trauma, liberation, strength, and joy. In Charles's electrifying transliteration of English-Chaucerian in affect, but revolutionary in effect-what is old is made new again. 'i care so much abot the whord i cant reed.' In feeld, Charles stakes her claim on the language available to speak about trans experience, reckoning with the narratives that have come before by reclaiming the language of the past. Selected by Fady Joudah as a winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series, Jos Charles's revolutionary second collection of poetry, feeld, is a lyrical unraveling of the circuitry of gender and speech, defiantly making space for bodies that have been historically denied their own vocabulary. FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE

Feeld by jos charles