Ransack

In ransack, essa may ranapiri addresses the difficulty of assembling and understanding a fractured, unwieldy self through an inherited language - a language whose assumptions and expectations ultimately make it inadequate for such a task. These poems seek richer, less hierarchical sets of words to describe ways of being. Punctuated by a sequence of letters to Virginia Woolf's character Orlando, this immersive collection is about discovering, articulating, and defending - to oneself and to others - what it means to exist outside of the western gender binary, as takatapui. It describes an artist in a state of becoming, moving from Te Kore through Te Po and into the light. This is a significant body of work by a seriously talented writer. It's moving, sometimes startling, and a pleasure to read. And, for many of us - but especially for those of us whose experience reflects ransack's larger themes - it's a book in which those of us who have rarely done so can also manage to see ourselves. -Stephanie Burt