Born Backwards

Author: Tanya Olson

Publisher: YesYes Books (2024)

Born Backwards, Tanya Olson’s third collection, reports from inside butch culture in the 1980s American South as it traces how geography, family, experiences, and popular culture shape one queer life. The collection argues for recording these moments before they disappear, not for the purposes of nostalgia but because of their importance to building a future.  Like much of Olson’s other work, these poems locate the extraordinary within the commonplace— hearing the songs of the Carter Family, reading a child’s version of Frankenstein, discovering k.d. lang, and watching soap operas with a grandmother become the building blocks of becoming an individual.