The Dinner Party

Cat Fitzpatrick delights in this post-pandemic follow-up to her debut verse novel of present-day manners, The Call-Out— a trans community celebration of mores, gender theory, and rhyme. The Dinner Party returns to the chaotic and adorable world of trans femme. The title piece begins… “The ‘Rona being now at last abated;” and continues with cameo portraits of the seven guests she plans to invite, including: Together, as we had in days gone by. I asked Rakshasi, clad in black, so thin, So eager for some trouble to get in, Of any kind, and Sophie, blunt and dry, Who often ended up the night so pissed She’d trip and fall when climbing up the stairs, And learned Bridget, sweet, beset by cares, Who always talks about her therapist –– My besties. Plus I asked along a pair Of mascs: Adonis, such a charming youth, More interested in beauty than in truth Who drives a motorbike and braids his hair, And Dominic, less young, but full of poise, A trickster with a most provoking grin, More pleased with contradiction than with sin, And even more with argument than boys, Joining “The Dinner Party” are several other themed pieces, including “A Stay in the Country;” a short arcadian pageant, “Baby Book;” about the trials and tribulations of making babies as queer and transsexual couples, “Letter to Crabstick;” an epistolatory friendship, and “Uxorious Sonnets;” a collection of eight love poems, among them Sonnet 6 in which she writes: it’s almost terrifying when we fuck how there I am, how in that jostle and shove of flesh, my thoughts, that mostly run amuck, contract to simply shouting Love You Love.