"Astonishing intimacy breathes through every page. I rejoice to think of all the readers who will discover this treasury of care and attention."—John Lee Clark, author of How to Communicate, National Book Award Finalist
"Since I discovered Kenny Fries’s poems, they’ve haunted me as only work of rare brilliance can....His poems speak not only to the queer, the different or disabled, but to every one of us in these brutal and revealing times."—Margaret Randall, author of I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary
"Returns, however, doesn’t speak of victimhood but of personhood, a much more intimate and consequential journey voiced through the remarkable power of his poetry. No body, we learn, is “born unwhole” when it is fortified by inner strength, self-determination, and love."—Rigoberto González, recipient of the 2025 Ruth Lily Poetry Prize, and author of To The Boy Who Was Night
"What a blessing to have, in one retrospective volume, Kenny Fries’s beautiful, forthright poetry, in which spirituality and protest are fused, and unwavering attention to fortifying love, urgent disability and queer witness, is paramount."—Cyrus Cassells, author of More Than Watchmen at Daybreak
Description
With his poems, essays, memoirs, journalism, and advocacy, Kenny Fries has been in the vanguard of disability literature for over forty years. From considerations of Darwin and social Darwinism to the flinty and dismissive corridors of American medicine, Fries shows us how disability, embodiment, queerness, curiosity, and contrarianism can push us toward hope. With Returns: Poems Selected and New, the power of his lyricism reminds us why poetry truly matters. This is an important book by a poet at the height of his craft.
About the Author
Kenny Fries is the author of several books, including In the Province of the Gods, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory, and Body, Remember: A Memoir. He curated Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer, the first international exhibit on queer/disability history, activism, and culture at the Schwules Museum in Berlin. He is a Disability Futures Fellow of the Ford Foundation/Mellon Foundation/USA Artists.
Related Interest
July 2026