Books
Jendi Reiter’s six poetry books and chapbooks include Introvert Pervert (The Word Works), Made Man (Little Red Tree Publishing), and Swallow (Amsterdam Press: out of print, email for a copy). They are the author of the story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot/New Millennium Writings) and the novels Two Natures and Origin Story, both from Saddle Road Press.
Explore their work.
Poetry
Introvert Pervert
Watch for the exclusive cover reveal Feb. 19 at Electric Lit!
Remi Recchia, editor of Transmasculine Poetics, says: “Few poets can alchemize potty humor, incest survivorship, and pop culture and render the creation into YHWH-facing art. But Jendi Reiter can. In Introvert Pervert, be it through cruising erasures or an homage to Tony Soprano, the speaker dips his toe into a lake that was once frozen, a ‘river of jawbones’ or ‘the flood with the carnivores’ and their ‘reptilian sludge.'”
Made Man
Bullies in Love
Jendi Reiter’s second full-length poetry book includes fine art photography by Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship winner Toni Pepe. These poems speak of gendered embodiment and its discontents, parenthood after trauma, and finding a spiritual narrative to heal from oppressions both familial and political.
Barbie at 50
Winner of the Červená Barva Press Poetry Chapbook Contest. Afaa Michael Weaver says, “Barbie at 50 is a lush collection of poems with lines embroidered with the craft of a studied life. It’s Barbie outdoing herself, leaving off the accursed weight of a 1950’s perfectionism to discover the truth of genuine joy.”
Swallow
Winner of the Flip Kelly Poetry Chapbook Prize from Amsterdam Press. “The first thing that strikes the reader about Jendi Reiter’s Swallow is, naturally, the unusual cover illustration, which appears at once to be a multi-eyed cherub (the proper Old Testament kind), a brace of clothespins, a flock of nightmare birds, sewing needles, bent nails, and a heart-shaped crown of thorns.”
Prose
Origin Story
A gay comic-book writer uncovers repressed memories through his art in this experimental novel set in 1990s NYC. Remi Recchia says, “I’ve never read a book quite like Origin Story. Set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic and theological problems like the Binding of Isaac, the novel pulls the reader into a deep, uncertain landscape. Origin Story is wonderfully complex and explosive, and while it resists a fairytale ending, it offers something better than closure.” Origin Story is a stand-alone sequel to Two Natures.
Two Natures
Winner of the Rainbow Award for Best Contemporary Gay Fiction, Reiter’s debut novel is the spiritual coming-of-age story of a NYC fashion photographer during the AIDS crisis. Toby Johnson, author of Gay Spirituality, says, “Southern boy Julian Selkirk brings an outsider’s wry and engaging sense of humor to his quest to make it in the New York City fashion world. His romp through gay men’s urban culture also holds suffering, grief, pathos, and an ongoing struggle with the God of his childhood…An entertaining novel and a pleasure to read.”
An Incomplete List of My Wishes
A middle-aged secretary finds unlikely common ground with the death row inmate who may, or may not, have murdered her daughter. Superhero comics help a gay bar mitzvah boy cope with his discovery of his father’s adulterous double life. A suburban businesswoman learns how to grieve a long-ago bereavement through her strange attraction to the birthmother of the child she wants to adopt. An elderly Russian professor crashes a stranger’s wedding to prove that he is not losing his memory, inadvertently healing a decades-long rift between friends. In these and other stories, Reiter explores the fraught relationships among queer and straight family members, the search for a post-traumatic spirituality, and the fine line between soulmates and intimate enemies.