Tate [Freyjasson] has been cultivating an orchard of memory. In details of shears, smoke, sheds, and other objects, each poem in this collection is a kind of spell. Some works are incantations, some are evocations, and others whisper words of protection against the particular fruit growing in this metaphorical landscape. These patterns are cast along with identities Tate inhabits—disabled, queer, trans, Latinx, witch—collected into a mixture for the wards. That Spell is a sigil where each stroke of trauma and healing manifests in language.
“The poems in That Spell envelope in a sensory melancholia; a carving and cutting of identity, a pruning away of the blight of domestic expectation, of gender imperative, of love grown sour. At [Freyjasson’s] expert tending we are witness to the hard lines of labor, and soft curves of fruit: bruisable and pitted, ripe to bursting with rage. That Spell is both an invocation and inquiry into how the natural world bears witness to our wounds and how we grow ourselves from the twisted roots. It is an elliptical landscape of reversals and returns, seasonalities of grief and respite. [Freyjasson’s] gift for imagery becomes a lexicon for the brambles of queer adolescence. That Spell plants a question we all must learn to nurture: How do we unsalt the self we must tend?”
—Michael Todd Cohen, Assistant Editor at XRAY Literary Magazine
we, animals
A visual poetry collection of nontraditional, multimodal compositions on the subjects of love, desire, pain, pleasure, and gender identity. This book is in no way a guide on how to behave when you’re in love, but at the core, these are love poems. Loving freely requires a lack of constraint. We want to be bound, but we want the bindings to be the ones we choose.
“In we animals, [Tate Freyjasson] doesn’t just evoke fur and claw and quickened heart: they inhabit. Here, the deep intimacy built between so-called predator and prey (self and other, self and self) tangles and untangles in an endless knot of relating. Here, a narrative of emergence arcs towards lyrical decomposition: “when the end comes i will bend you like a star / and kiss you sticky the curves of you animal / until we the last island drown.” Here, sounds, forms, and images pulse together with blood’s electricity. These are words to read aloud, to wrestle with, to be cornered by, to hold.”– D. Allen, A Bony Framework for the Tangible Universe (The Operating System, 2019)
“Dear Intrepid Reader: This book is alive. How do I know this? Because many things have tried to quiet it, and none have been successful. If you are lucky enough to be holding it in your hands at this moment, considering it, turn to page 50. I dare you to walk away from it now. we, animals is unlike anything you have ever experienced. Note that I do not say “read”, because:
“One, there is more at work in these pages than poetry, art, and magic, and
“Two, because you don’t read this book – it reads you. Are you ready to experience it? I hope that you are.
“Where magic, horror, identity, and reclamation intersect, you will find we, animals. From the experimental, oracular beauty of cassandra’s eyes and the rasping apocalypse of rhh, we, animals guides the reader to the terrible beauty and terrifying precipice of myth, folk tale, and the narratives of self that we all construct – only to dismantle those ideas, page by page, reconstructing them into something new, something, fierce – something with teeth.”
— Allie Marini, author of This Apiary, Here Comes Hell, and Southern Cryptozoology: A Field Guide to Beasts of the Southern Wild
Full-length Books
That Spell, Autofocus Books (2023).
we, animals, Beating Windward Press (2021).
Telomeres, Zoetic Press (2016).
Chapbooks
The Antichrist and I, Bone and Ink Press (2020).
Space Baby (Episodes I-III), Sundress Publications (2019).
Space Baby, ELJ Publications (2016).
wringing gendered we, Zoo Cake Press (2016).
self is wolf, dancing girl press (2015).
some prophets, Finishing Line Press (2015).
Anthologies
Editor, Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities, Sundress Publications (2019).
Interactive Narratives
Lace Up Their Boots, Console-ing Passions Arcade (2022).
Essays
“that snip,” Salamander 52 (2021).
“Noisemaking,” Stone of Madness 10 (2021).
“They, There,” beestung 6 (2021).
“Plane Leaving a Hangar Facing Left,” trampset (2021).
“On Mouths, Jellyfish Review (2020).
“Disambiguation,” Other Orlandos (2017).
“*bendh-,” The Southeast Review 34.1 (2016).
“Physics,” Spittoon (2015).
“The Age of Electricity,” Midway Journal (2015).
“Memoria,” The Sundress Blog: Sundress Publications (2014).
“Operation Fever,” Sundog Lit 6.1 (2014).
“To Meditate,” Sundog Lit 6.1 (2014).
“Vietnam in Footnotes (excerpt),” Gulf Stream 11.1 (2014).
“Advice to the Essayist,” fillingStation 56.1 (2013): 51-52.
“Medals,” fillingStation 56.1 (2013): 53-55.
“War,” Storm Cellar 2.3 (2013): 12-16.
“Birds,” DIAGRAM 12.1 (2012). Web.
“Urns,” Hippocampus Magazine 1.5 (2011).
Stories
“Outline for a Lyric Essay About Cavemen,” Ghost Parachute Anthology (2021).
“Shaping the Stone,” Quail Bell Magazine (2021).
“The Antichrist and I Try Marijuana in the Form of Rice Krispy Treats,” Fiction International 52 (2019).
“The Antichrist and I Visit the Local Zoo,” Fiction International 52 (2019).
“The Antichrist and I, and the Book,” Pretty Owl Poetry 6.1 (2019).
“The Antichrist Picks Flowers For Me at the Botanical Garden,” Pidgeonholes 15 (2019).
“The Antichrist Drops a Mug on Our Kitchen Floor,” PANK 14.1 (2019).
“We Are Edging Ever Closer to the Moment When the Antichrist Cleaves the World,” Shirley Magazine 12 (2018).
“The Antichrist and I, and Foreplay,” Thirteen Myna Birds (2018).
“Outline for a Lyric Essay About Cavemen,” Ghost Parachute 3.3 (2018).
“Case Study,” Ghost Parachute 1.4 (2016).
Poems
“that snip,” Poetry Foundation “Disability Poetics” Collection (2023).
“Cloud, we’ve both pressed our ghosts behind a heavy lock,” The Daily Drunk (2021).
“Squall, Interstitial,” The Daily Drunk (2021).
“They Does Not Fit Like a Thundershirt Should,” Fat & Queer: An Anthology of Queer & Trans Bodies & Lives (2021).
“’You’re Too Fat to be Androgynous’,” Fat & Queer: An Anthology of Queer & Trans Bodies & Lives (2021).
“Cloud, at the party, you wouldn’t take off your buster sword and I get it, I do,” Twin Pies Literary (2021).
“TFW the Zoom Party is in Four Hours But You Start Getting Ready Anyway,” HAD: Hobart After Dark (2020).
“detail of matches,” Fantastic Floridas (2020).
“detail of shears,” Fantastic Floridas (2020).
“i go to a hole in the wall caribbean restaurant because their beans taste like my father’s beans,”Fantastic Floridas (2020).
“that smoke,” Fantastic Floridas (2020).
“how to fold a stone,” Third Place: Rougarou 2019-2020 Poetry Contest (2020).
“Binary IV,” Bone Bouquet (2020).
“detail of baskets,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“detail of cutting,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“detail of a shed,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“detail of fruit rotting,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“Orchard I,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“Self portrait as shears,” The /temz/ Review (2020).
“obituary for the broken branch,” Stirring: A Literary Collection 21.4 (2019).
“that crack,” Stirring: A Literary Collection 21.4 (2019).
“They Does Not Fit Like a Thundershirt Should,” Likely Red (2018).
“You’re too Fat to be Androgynous,” Nat Brut: Beyond Resilience: Sick/Disabled Realities Folio (2018).
“Binary I,” Rogue Agent 34 (2018).
“straight partner of ten years and anyone else,” Pulse/Pulso (2018).
“to be born,” Pulse/Pulso (2018).
“trans-,” Pulse/Pulso (2018).
“a protest,” Crab Fat Magazine 4.2 (2017).
“latin@x,” Crab Fat Magazine 4.2 (2017).
“pronouns,” Crab Fat Magazine 4.2 (2017).
“thunderbird,” Crab Fat Magazine 4.2 (2017).
“when i knew for sure i had lost 49 of you,” Crab Fat Magazine 4.2 (2017).
“i agree i waited too long, that time boiled into a skin the way hot milk does,” Rogue Agent 23 (2017).
“cooing breaths into me tight and stretching, wider, still,” Up the Staircase Quarterly 36 (2017).
“to unwind you,” Amethyst Arsenic 6.2 (2016).
“cold is relative, and while i say,” Public Pool (2016).
“death we know a black room,” Public Pool (2016).
“last begging,” Public Pool (2016).
“to animals,” Public Pool (2016).
“to live forever, unless you wished to,” Public Pool (2016).
“when the end comes i will hold you still,” Public Pool (2016).
“wolf waits,” Public Pool (2016).
“binding we,” The Florida Review 40.2 (2016).
“a build,” Stirring: A Literary Collection 18.10 (2016).
“the voxels crumbling,” Stirring: A Literary Collection 18.10 (2016).
“i pressed my ear to the wall between us.,” Juked (2015).
“i’ve never told you, but i check our horoscopes at the same time.,” Juked (2015).
“. we spoke once of a vision and in it there you rested on a snow bed a stiff leaf,” Grist (2015).
“a plot of grieve you,” Luna Luna (2015).
“in the moment of drowning,” Luna Luna (2015).
“when we talk of sex we talk barbaric,” Luna Luna (2015).
“you have a heat spreading out,” Luna Luna (2015).
“your body lithe is future burning,” Luna Luna (2015).
“the iron hook,” Alba: A Journal of Short Poetry 27.1 (2014).
“with horns and hands,” Alba: A Journal of Short Poetry 27.1 (2014).
“the wulf is in her wire cage,” BOAAT 1.2 (2014).
“we-re-wulf is when,” BOAAT 1.2 (2014).
“archipelago,” BorderSenses 20.1 (2014).
“gendersex wulf,” CutBank: All Accounts and Mixture (2014).
“self is not a pack of she,” CutBank: All Accounts and Mixture (2014).
“An old definition of sinister is situated left.,” Menacing Hedge 3.4 (2014).
“Mike Shier,” Scary Bush 3.4 (2014).
“of rock,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of currency,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of carving,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of tarot,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of mosquitos,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of glass,” Truck 3.12 (2013).
“of wax,” Truck 3.12 (2013).