The Robert Poems

A speculative poetic history reimagining Robert Blake, the brother of the celebrated poet William Blake, as a trans man in the eighteenth century.

Blending deeply researched historical details with the author’s personal experiences, The Robert Poems playfully and critically imagines a trans literary archive during a period in which transness, as we know it today, is not always readily visible. Robert Blake was a ghostly figure that often visited his brother, William, after Robert’s untimely death at the age of twenty-five—the same age S. Yarberry was when they began their medical transition. This happenstance of transitions, medical and metaphysical, drove Yarberry through a series of poetic explorations culminating in a collection with one question beating at its heart: what if trans history could be built on abundance, rather than scarcity?

For fans of Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox and Ruth Padel’s Darwin, The Robert Poems provides a lush landscape for Robert to thrive within, offering a new wellspring for trans pasts and a springboard from which to imagine inventive, expansive trans futures.