When The Chant Comes

by Kay Ulanday Barrett

Kay Ulanday Barrett has been bringing his unique poetry to audiences for over a decade, unpicking vital political questions around race, sickness and disability and gender, and chronicling the everydayness of life in the U.S. Empire with humor, poignancy and inimitable vitality. Now at last a generous selection of his work will be available in print. Each of these poems is a brilliant little story. Taken together, they show a master craftsman at the top of his game. Pre-order them now.

Genres: Poetry, Disability, Queer, LGBT, Mental Health, Transgender, Asian American

116 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2016

About the author

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, and cultural strategist. They are the 2022 winner of the Cy Twombly Award for Poetry by the Foundation of Contemporary Art. Barrett’s second poetry collection, More Than Organs received a 2021 Stonewall Book Honor Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Finalist in Transgender poetryy. They have featured at The Lincoln Center, The U.N., Symphony Space, The Poetry Project, Princeton University, NYU, The Dodge Poetry Foundation, The Hemispheric Institute, Brooklyn Museum, and more. They’ve received fellowship invitations from MacDowell, Lambda Literary, Monson Arts, Drunken Boat, VONA, The Home School, VCCA, and Macondo. They are a 3x Pushcart Prize nominee and 2x Best of the Net nominee. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, The Advocate, F(r)iction, The Lily, Asian American Literary Review, Vogue, PBS News Hour, The Rumpus, NYLON, The Maine Review, Academy of American Poets, NYLON, WBAI Radio, NPR, and more. They have written two poetry books, When The Chant Comes (Topside Press, 2016) and More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020). They currently reside in Jersey City with their jowly dog.

Reviews

[zaynab · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing how you can follow someone on a blog for years and correspond digitally and yet realize in the blink of a page turn that you've never read their poetry before or heard them before. I realized while reading this book in the bathtub that Kay and I have mostly talked about food, which there is plenty of all up and through the pages of this book of tenderness. So it's something amazing and beautiful to finally get to travel down the road someone has paved for themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed Kay's poetry; every rumination, lamentation, love note, bits of heartache and joy alike. I'm eager for the next one, but I'll also settle for an autographed copy of their cookbook "Recipes for the People" as well.

[Bogi Takács]

(I'll probably review this one at length later, but I thought it was good)

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gift! This collection of poetry from Kay Ulanday Barrett speaks deeply and honestly to their life. From diaspora to disability, fighting for survival and fighting to be recognized, the complexities of family privilege, and more. Medicine for queer and trans people of color. Medicine for chronically ill and disabled folks. It's poetry that sings and sways as it moves through you.

[Danni Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my ongoing quest to read more trans books by trans writers, I picked up this gorgeous book of poetry and couldn't put it down. The poet does that thing with words where they seem to leap off the page and make me feel things all over my body that defy description. I've been reading a lot of poetry lately and this is some of the very best poetry I've encountered.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A devastatingly beautiful collection of poetry. Barrett’s voice incorporates his unique intersectional experience as a trans, queer, disabled, biracial child of an immigrant, yet it feels anyone can relate to the emotions evoked in each piece. A powerful testament to Barrett’s mother and his community.

[Geleni · Rating 5 out of 5]

A testimony of queer, sick and disabled, POC life layered with tenderness, humor, and loss. I felt myself and people I love held in these poems and still feel the warmth of it. I'm so grateful.

[Megan Stolz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not used to reading poetry like this. I was taken aback at so much slang, but of course you can put slang in poetry. I think it actually makes it more approachable. I read about Kay Ulanday Barrett in an issue of "Bitch" magazine, and I was interested enough to find their collection. I'm glad I did because Kay's is a voice that isn't normally heard in American poetry but needs to be there. I know that he performs poetry (spoken word?) as well, and I'm interested now in hearing them speak.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

While there were some grammatical errors that, at times were distracting, I really loved the strength with which Barrett wrote, and found some of his writing to be simply exquisite. So glad I (randomly) stumbled upon this book!

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and difficult. Big and small, loud and quiet. Kay is brilliant and this book is too.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kay Ulanday Barrett has a gift for putting feelings and experiences into words that seemed unnameable before. What a blessing to our people.

[Lynn]

queer, trans, filipinx. Beautiful poetry. I love the unconventional structure and use of fonts as art.

[Rose Stanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another collection of poetry that I wanted to like more than I did, sigh.
There are some gems in here but overall I can't give this a higher rating and it makes me sad.

[Derrick Contreras · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really solid collection about disability, race, and queerness. I’m surprised more people haven’t read this.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"you long for
someone
anyone
who lived
stayed
bothered
long
enough at all."

[Bug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved a lot of these poems. Most of them were really emotional, which is my favourite thing is poetry, and a lot of lines really hit me. But stylistically, some of them just weren't for me. I'm personally not as into the longer, paragraph-style poetry in written form, and there were a few with that style. There weren't any that I disliked, but just based off my personal preference I didn't enjoy them as much as some others.
Still an incredible poetry collection and I think the author is amazingly talented

[Leslie (updates on SG) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I appreciated Barrett's way with words, especially in the poems "Uncertain," "I want to call and ask you to come over," "YOU are SO Brave," and "tools to survive mercury in retrograde."

Some inspired passages:

Cry out in gutted sentences
cupping hope knowing that it isn't enough to
be a woman or poor or immigrant or
a person of color or queer, but
enough to fight against being fragments.
--"Uncertain"

don't try to console me with,
well, at least we're under the same moon.

at least the moon gets to see you beam in person.
--"I want to call and ask you to come over"

the problem isn't that you are not enough, the gift is that you are incredibly all too much.
--"tools to survive mercury in retrograde"