Available May 14, 2026

“Powerful, generation-defining poems.”

- Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture, Amherst College

“In a salvo against modern life, mk zariel composes a collection of poems fit to throw in the gears of the machine and imagine a world beyond the social hierarchies that inundate our lives with so much misery and suffering. With clever quips, sardonic allusions to the digital age, and earnest queer longing, zariel wrestles with both the minutia and the joy of our contemporary times in equal measure. zariel’s delightful lineation, playful images, and ardent sense of justice make for a timely assembly of poems that feel urgent in this moment and timeless simultaneously.”

- Pearson Bolt, host of Coffee With Comrades

“It's exciting to see new, contemporary voices in poetry, and mkz is worthy of the term. Infatuated with modern concerns of technology, discourse, gender and pop-culture, zariel has a fresh youthful voice that creatively traverses our present moment. This collection gives voice to what will hopefully be a wave of emerging voices, offering fresh eyes on the increasingly weird social, political and cultural landscape of the Weird Times that await us.”

- Brenton Clutterbuck, author of Chasing Eris

mk zariel {it/its + masc terms} is a transmasculine neuroqueer theater artist, Best Of The Net and Monarch Award nominated poet, movement journalist, and BashBack! aligned anarchist translocally rooted in the Great Lakes region. The author of DIFFERENT WITH HIM (Rockwood Press, 2026) and BOY APPARITION (Vinegar Press, 2025), it creates conflictual spaces for trans survival and queer desire. BashBack! remains close to its heart, as do anarchonihilism/egoism, experimental theater, and the defiant tenderness of queer collectivity.

Its writing has appeared in Querencia Press, Akpata, J Journal, Witches Magazine, Fifth Estate, ANMLY, OurLives Wisconsin, Library Of Eris, #EnbyLife, Oyster River Pages, and Seattle Journal of Social Justice, among many others. It contributes columns to Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, its mixed media work is featured through Open Sorcery, and it authors the advice column DEBATE ME BRO and hosts the podcast THE CHILD AND ITS ENEMIES. mk is the author of eleven self-published zine projects, and performs regularly at anarchist gatherings, zine fests, and queer liberation events. You can find its offerings, commissions, and chaotic love letters to the world at mkzariel.carrd.co.