“It is an attempt at reconciling growing up in the shadow of the AIDS crisis with the realities of PrEP and 21st Century LGBTQ+ culture. It is about finding personal balance in the face of the limits of gender and sexuality. This is a book for anyone who has felt out of sync with mainstream cultures, queer or not.”

“Zeena / Zenobia Speaks engages in the essential lyric task of giving voice to the voiceless. In these poems, the taciturn meets the turn of well-wrought lines that wring meaning from the quiet sufferings of Wharton’s iconic character. Wharton’s Zeena emerges in complexity and depth, her suppressed cry released and shaped in poems of potent imagery and clipped syntax that ‘can manage the weight of snow’ and the ‘threat of fire.’”

“In these twenty-six poems – one for each letter – words that are infrequently used by some of us serve as springboards, prompting introspection and reflection.”