We Come Elemental

"In her lovely, complicated poems, Beyer . . . suggests that queerness isn't relegated to gender or love but is part of the ebb and flow of everything." --Library Journal

"What is remarkable about We Come Elemental is that it effectively queers nature and body without explicitly doing so.... Gender, sexuality, and body coexist with the ever-changing tides, and desire is upheld as a pure form of (re)creation. Beyer has written a nuanced book that deserves a careful, joyous, and thoughtful read." --Lambda Literary

Through "queer:: eco:: poetics," Tamiko Beyer leads readers to reconsider the true meaning and implications of nature and "natural" order. Reclaiming nature as queer, Beyer inspires us to discard gender dichotomies and uncover the intricate relationships between bodies both human and elemental through syntax as unpredictable as the natural world's movements.

From "Look Alive, Dark Side":

Beach walking we

who siphon the wet

step around dumb

lumps gleaming

in moonlight's pull:

creatures the tide

abandons to the shore.

We are not at all like them.

Tamiko Beyer spent the first ten years of her life in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of the chapbook bough breaks (Meritage Press). She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and was awarded a Chancellor's Fellowship. Beyer is a former Kundiman Fellow, a recipient of a grant from the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, and a contributing editor to Drunken Boat. She works as the advocacy writer at Corporate Accountability International.