Nonbinary Bird of Paradise

In this innovative fifth collection, Phillips (Embouchure) applies their considerable imaginative powers to questions about gender. As the drabber version of a dimorphic bird known for its complicated mating rituals, the speaker of the title poem asks, “Would you/ brandish/ at the encroaching, sequined/ egos your bright beak/ like a sword—?” In the first section of the book, Eve rewrites the Fall as a feat of lesbian creation: “God made man/ in his own image,/ so they say/ So I made a beloved/ in mine.” Later, Noah, recast as a cruel rapist rather than a savior, beats back the unchosen from the ark’s edge. As the book moves from heterosexual traumas of abusive marriage, rape, and divorce to the newly discovered bliss of femme love, the poems wrestle with negative reactions (“I Told the Man Who Said ‘Don’t You Want to Look like a Lady?’ to Fuck Off”) while celebrating sexual transformation: “If we were lesbian elephants, I would/ grab the eucalyptus with my trunk and swat// your great elephant rump.” Phillips’s skillful revising of ancient myths of self and body inventively widen the meaning and scope of paradise. (Apr.)