Milk Teeth

Description

Winner of the 2017 Thomas Shapcott Prize for Poetry. In the bright mirror morning, I scratch at flaked skin & peel lengths of stringy flesh to expose crackle quartz jutting from my neck. In this highly original debut collection, Rae White's edgy and playful poems challenge notions of category, identity, form and gender. Bodies transform, nature morphs and words dart and shift. White's wise and provocative poems define new ways, new languages.

Rae White is a non-binary poet and writer living in Brisbane. Their poetry has been published in Meanjin Quarterly, Cordite Poetry Review, Andromeda Spaceways, Woolf Pack and others. Their short stories have been published in Seizure, Capricious and Slink Chunk Press. Rae's poem 'what even r u?' placed second in the 2017 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Rae is the editor of #EnbyLife, a collaborative zine about non-binary experiences. They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Creative Writing Production) from Queensland University of Technology, and previously worked at 4ZZZ community radio as an on-air announcer. Milk Teeth is Rae's first poetry collection.

'In their first collection, White embraces the uncanny in liminal spaces: the lives of plants, apocalyptic suburbias, and erotic hauntings. In these poems, the gendered body is a shape-shifting source of power and pain. Milk Teeth glows and bristles with weird energy. These are poems that make you look over your shoulder, more than once.' Zenobia Frost 'This book will crack you open, will leave you trailing yolk, toes slickly webbed with albumen. This book is a body, an unfurling frond, an opening fist. This is a book to imbibe.' Quinn Eades 'Innovative and engaging poetry which shows the poet's ability to incorporate new techniques without alienating the reader. White has tamed modernism to produce a poetry that is playful and edgy and, at the same time, accessible and meaningful. It is both highly readable and provocative.' Judges' comments, Thomas Shapcott Prize