Lateral Sway - Mass Market Paperbound

by Hannah Karpinski (Author)

The Geography of Self: Exploring queer identity across shifting planes of silence, desire, and becoming.

Lateral Sway is a poetic meditation on the fluidity and fragility of desire--an exploration of how we are constantly reshaped by invisible forces. The poems speak to the experience of being pulled off-course, swayed by what lies just out of reach, and finding moments of balance in the tension between movement and stillness. Here, queer identity is not vertical, but horizontal--an ongoing dance between selves, shaped not by hierarchical power but by the spaces in between. To sway is to allow the self to be molded by what is unseen, to move through realms of longing, memory, and connection.

Blending intellectual depth with emotional vulnerability, Lateral Sway navigates queer loving, memory, resistance, and surrender. Its non-linear structure mirrors the complexity of queer identity itself, offering a raw and nuanced reflection on desire, connection, and the ways we communicate. The poetic fragments are framed through a journey that is both inward and outward bound, reverberating with ancestral echoes and transnational solidarities. This collection is a visceral exploration of the interplay between silence and speech, inviting readers to consider the spaces where the self dwells--not only through what we say but through what we choose to leave unsaid.

Author Biography

Hannah Karpinski is a lesbian Canadian poet from Tkaronto/Toronto. Diving into intimate personal archives and collective memory, she writes about queer friendship and queer desire. You can find her poems in Commo Mag, Voicemail Poems, Ghost City Press' My Loves: Digital Anthology of Queer Love Poems, and elsewhere. Lateral Sway is her first book.