Exactly as I Am

let me tell you
how to lean gently on
one another without
rocking sideways.

Rae White’s compelling second poetry collection Exactly As I Am rises from their lived experience as a non-binary transgender person. Their gloriously defiant, unruly poems dissect and scrutinise the spaces transgender people are both assigned and denied in society, through unflinching explorations of gender identity, gender discrimination and gender euphoria. These bracing poems lean towards you, hold out their hand and offer you: a connection, a community, an emboldened call to action.