The Tenderness of Glass Book Launch with Jodi Lin and Gavilán Rayna Russom

Join us on Thursday, July 17 at 7pm to celebrate the launch of The Tenderness of Glass (new words {press}, 2025)—a non-traditional book of narrative verse and prose poetry by Jodi Lin. Lin will read from the new publication and come together in conversation with Gavilán Rayna Russom to discuss their creative practice on the occasion of this release. brooklyn baggett, the founder and managing editor of new words {press}, will offer closing remarks.

About The Tenderness of Glass
I have been hearing voices since I was a child. My favorite voice is WIm, the voice of my wiser self or wise mind. In times of crisis, she comforts me with details of my future. I named her WIm and she consented. The letter “I” in her name is intentionally capitalized because her voice is for me, about me and no one else can hear her. I began a practice of notating what WIm tells me during my last hospitalization. 15 years later, what began in orange crayon at Bellevue Psychiatric, has resulted in my book, The Tenderness of Glass.

Part memoir and part manifesto, The Tenderness of Glass is a non-traditional book of narrative verse and prose poetry. Each of my book’s six parts is named after a Tibetan Buddhist Bardo. Beginning with the Bardo of Life, we follow the Goddess Palden Lhamo through the underworld to her next chosen body. The body she chooses is me—transgender and native of the Pacific Islands, raised with abuse in the United States.

In the Bardo of Dreams we enter the psychiatric hospital; a world where the spirit is distorted by heavy medication. Having “fallen out of love with life,” the narrative is pushed by love and loving in the Bardo of Meditation. From love comes the inspired Bardo of Dying where the reincarnation of the Goddess takes form in the many lives of Queen Búrté. Spiritual luminosity restores the Queen to their rightful throne as the Queen of Tibet. The last part of my book, The Bardo of Becoming, is a vision for the destruction of an apocalyptic future. From the wrath of this destruction, humanity is led to a new nirvana.

Jodi Lin identifies as a gender expansive poet, filmmaker, and person who hears voices. Taiwanese of the Seediq Tribe, they are currently based in Manhattan. Their poetry can be experienced in a video diary called "Leaving Beauty" on YouTube, Open Fruit Magazine, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Project’s Footnotes, and others. Graduate of the ART Institute at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Their writing practice is enriched by the certified peer recovery coaching and support they provide. The Tenderness of Glass is their debut collection from new words {press}. The book was written as an offering of a new world to their ancestors.

Gavilán Rayna Russom is a folklorist, artist, community organizer, and curator based in New York. Rayna is the founder and director of Voluminous Arts, an organization dedicated to the experimental artistic culture of transgender people and communities.

brooklyn baggett is a trans poet and artist living in New York. She holds an MFA from Goddard College. She is dedicated to the radical act of being herself and lifting the voices of trans poets. brooklyn is the founder and managing editor of new words {press}—a trans and gender-expansive poetry press. Her chapbook, we cast shadows & other true stories, was originally published by Bottlecap Press, and her debut book, rais(z)ing brooklyn, is forthcoming from Querencia Press. brooklyn’s work has appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal, samfiftyfour, Broken Lens Journal, Impossible Archetype, Big Muddy, and River Styx, among others.