-The Gay & Lesbian Review
A genderqueer person living with cerebral palsy, Eli Clare uses writing as a bully pulpit against trans and disability oppression. His newest book, Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming, is a balm amid the Trumpian obliteration of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and trans identities. His writing is infused with a passion for social justice.
Clare has previously written two books of essays and a collection of poetry, in addition to being published in dozens of journals and anthologies. His award-winning Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure (2017) challenged the medicalized disability narrative of defective brokenness, and he debunked the ableist “inspiration” porn objectifying people with disabilities through the adept use of historical research, memoir, and poetry.
The new book’s journey began eight years ago when Clare was commissioned to write text for a performance by the Kinetic Light disability arts ensemble. In the intervening years, the deaths of family members and friends, along with Covid, affected his work. In 2020 he was awarded an unrestricted grant of $50,000 as a Disability Futures Fellow funded by the Ford and Mellon foundations, which allowed him to concentrate fully on writing for more than a year.
Unfurl continues his interweaving of creative nonfiction prose, poetry, memoir, history, and advocacy. Topics are ever shape-shifting: painful flashbacks of childhood abuse interspersed with dreamscapes engulfed by gorgeous environmental metaphors, as well as erudite critiques of classifications and nomenclature. Resiliency and healing are central to his perspective. Tender ruminations of stumbling strides and crawling across forest floors invite other people with disabilities to break normative strictures and “scoot, slide and crawl” with him. Timid teenage poems are reconceived with empowerment and affirmation. Intergenerational trauma is examined, not to forgive but to break the chain of “survivor turned perpetuator.”
Clare’s writing is intentionally free of academic jargon and is further made accessible through visual format notes on poetry spacing, historical context, endnotes, and content warnings. These layers add to the flow of the book, inviting the reader into multiple ways of experiencing the writing. Community is important to the author; lost heroes are commemorated. “Justice dreamers” are acknowledged, emphasizing collective care and liberation. Also essential is his self-caring embrace of the natural world: “Sitting in the woods or at the ocean, I glimpse a world that relishes crookedness, wholeness and brokenness.”
In his recombinant synthesis of mixed genre writing, Clare provides a road map to create joy and freedom in the face of formidable societal obstacles. His journey is testament to a path forward as he reminds us: “It is time/ to listen to our grief and soothe our jangled/ nerves—we must not relinquish imagination.” In an interview, the 62-year-old artist expressed his concerns about the current storm of anti-trans hysteria: “They are going to fail. There’s no way that they in the long term will erase trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.” He hopes the book will “strengthen people’s ability to disobey, resist, and rebel.” And he plans to be “available for as much street protest as my body can sustain.”