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“With Tending Clay; Unearthing Stars, MJ Anthony viscerally depicts the all-important first step of Creation: before the pot can ever be fired, the clay must be unearthed, raw and shapeless, and it must be thrown.Invoking the familiar just as skillfully as the unknowable, they illustrate a map of the self in inks of pain and tenderness. They expose their wounds with subtlety and bluntness in turn, then ice their bruises with quiet moments of full-hearted love.In reading this collection, I kept feeling so stricken and dizzy that I could only liken it to the sensation of seeing stars - surely no mere coincidence, but a testament to their art. Anthony will take you by the hand and together you will be buried, dug up, revealed, shaped, shattered, repaired, and ground into starlight.”
"Anthony's poetry swallows the idea of identity with a glass of chronic illness, asking which parts of yourself get to be whole. It weighs tending to themselves while getting sick and getting better and getting sick again as a constant rollercoaster, all while unearthing their own queer identity..."
“Tending Clay; Unearthing Stars by MJ Anthony is a collection exploring chronic illness, identity, pain at its most exhausting, dysphoria, acceptance, body image, love, self care, relationships with food, and self discovery. I frequently had to pause to put the book down and let myself simply feel. It grew on me like a daring plant, winding up my arms as I turned the digital pages. In many ways, these poems spoke to me so deeply. I have very different experiences than Anthony and I found it wonderful that this book can speak to people no matter how our lives have played out.”