Pure Light, by Binx River Perino

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Pure Light is a retrospective, moving through time, space, memory, and art in pursuit of meaning. While exploring the risk of deviating from one’s assigned gender at birth and the grief of the passage of time, there are reminders of joy, connection, and survival through nature and art. “Pure Light” dives fully into the consciousness of a speaker who is simultaneously terrified and fascinated by the world around them, and within them.

Pure Light engages with artists like Salvador Dalí and Vincent Van Gogh through ekphrasis, and with poets such as Muriel Rukeyser and Walt Whitman. The speaker observes art and the natural world in search for meaning in a seemingly absurd existence. As a queer person in a society that politicizes queer bodies, the speaker reaches for hope and connection. The journey from the individual to the collective is explored with birds and butterflies, who spend generations migrating away from and back home. These movements balance a sense of mystery with a sense of belonging.

Binx River Perino is a queer poet from Texas, completing their Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing at Emerson College in Boston. Their work can be found in Variant Literature, Mixed Magazine, Cold Mountain Review, GASHER, and elsewhere.