Cyborg Sister
Cyborg Sister by Jackie Craven is a poetry chapbook published by Headmistress Press on February 4, 2022. This 40-page collection presents a memoir-in-poems that delves into the complexities of family dynamics through unique lenses such as horticulture and magical realism. The speaker, depicted as a queer girl-sleuth, navigates a surreal domestic landscape, exploring themes of identity and societal expectations.
Readers will find a vivid exploration of intimate and uncanny spaces within female lives, where whimsical elements intertwine with deeper critiques of heteronormative standards. The poems feature imaginative scenarios, including a house that menstruates and a cyborg sister who sheds her skin at night. Through this lens, Craven addresses the struggles of a young girl grappling with her desires against the backdrop of familial expectations, making this collection a thought-provoking examination of identity and behavior.
Official synopsis Publisher
Finalist for the Charlotte Mew Prize
This memoir-in-poems examines a complex family through horticulture, heterocentricism, and-wait for it!-Nancy Drew. The speaker as queerly astute girl-sleuth “cross-examines the microwave” and probes the “empty ghosts in the basement closet.” The result is a page-turner in which the promise of each arresting title-among them, “Dusk Lands on Page 37 of The Whispering Statue” and “Our House is Menstruating”-is realized.
-Julie Marie Wade, judge of Charlotte Mew Contest
In Jackie Craven’s gorgeous chapbook, Cyborg Sister, readers will encounter a weird, luminous world where a house menstruates, a cyborg sister removes her skin at night, and a father gifts his children with robotic roses. These whimsical poems, steeped in elements of magical realism, explore the intimate, uncanny domestic spaces of female lives.
-Sarah Giragosian, author of Queer Fish and The Death Spiral
Fusing magnificent craft with penetrating humor, Jackie Craven’s Cyborg Sister provides an unforgettable critique of heteronormative standards for female behavior through its depiction of a young girl struggling with the desires and culturally condemned messiness of her own skin, while her “properly cultivated” sister is extolled for being “perfect” in every detail.
-Lisa Dordal, author of Mosaic of the Dark and Water Lessons
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