In her second collection, Mann wrestles with the questions and possibilities raised when trans identity, faith, and the limits of myth and language intersect and are tested.
In her second collection, Mann wrestles with the questions and possibilities raised when trans identity, faith, and the limits of myth and language intersect and are tested.
Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2024
A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation 2024
Inher second collection, Mann wrestles with the questions andpossibilities raised when trans identity, faith and the limits of mythand language intersect and are tested. Eleanor Among the Saints is a study in the queer joy found in counter-factuals and fantasy,shaped through the prism of the disputed story of Eleanor Rykener, amedieval trans woman, seamstress and sex worker.
Commended for A Poetry Book Society Recommendation 2024 Short-listed for The T.S. Eliot Prize 2024
'All poetry has something to do with bodies being transformed - whether in violence and grief, or in hope, in embrace, in miracle. Rachel Mann's brilliant collection is about these transformations, realised for us here with exhilarating verbal energy and emotional subtlety, a poetry that is solid and fluid at the same time, as bodies are.' - Rowan Williams;'Rachel Mann weaves an intricate web of language to examine the intimate relationship between the transforming, transformative body, between sexuality and spirituality, between religious ecstasy, fear and love. When Eleanor 'John' Rykener - a trans person living in medieval England - says 'I am not code for another's sins' she becomes utterly contemporary and timeless at the same time and we would all do well to listen.' - Kim Moore;'Nobody else could have written this: poems formed in the space where divinity, the body, trans identity and history fold together. A singular, sensational collection.' - Andrew McMillan
Rachel Mann is a priest, writer, theologian, and broadcaster. She has written fourteen books of prose, criticism, poetry, and theology. Her poetry has been highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Best Single Poem and is widely anthologised. She is a well-established radio broadcaster and regularly contributes to BBC Radio 4's Thought For The Day. Currently she is Archdeacon of Salford and Bolton in the Diocese of Manchester, UK.
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