Scream / Queen

"Eskilson’s broad talent belies the fact that Scream / Queen is a debut. . . the cohesiveness of the collection makes the book seem almost predestined. . . . The collection is introspective and highly vulnerable, showcasing revealing poems about chronic illness and failed relationships. Eskilson writes in conversation with contemporaries, family history and current events, weaving in interviews, pop culture references and other poets’ work for a solid collection that respects the art while pushing boundaries." * AP *
"[An] imaginative and playful debut. . . Scream / Queen interrogates monstrosity and the monsterification of trans, queer, and disabled/mentally ill bodies through the lens of pop culture, particularly horror films. . . . By radically re-envisioning familiar characters and tropes, Eskilson breathes new life into their stories, granting them agency and also allowing readers who have been marginalized or flattened by harmful language and representation to see themselves reflected, perhaps for the first time. Scream / Queen is a testament to the liberatory power of queer imagination, creating 'Not simply / a new ending, an entirely new script.'"

  * Electric Literature *
"Monsters, body horror, and terror have a long and storied literary relationship with representations of queer experiences, social ostracization, and trauma—a relationship which presents a series of predictable tropes that are easy to fall into. In CD Eskilson’s debut poetry collection Scream/Queen, Eskilson spectacularly avoids and at times wittily critiques these clichés, presenting a beautifully original series of poems which play with familiar themes and poetic forms in practiced, unique ways." * dogyard mag *
"Eskilson’s incredible debut poetry collection asks us to examine what happens to our connection with our bodies when experiencing and perceiving them via a language based in violent binaries. Their work is a lyrical invitation to consider what monsters might demonstrate, what it means to act out what society views as horror, and how the body, particularly the trans and chronically ill body, is surveilled by a society whose language is inherently hostile towards it. Scream / Queen is not only diagnostic, but foresees a reality in which transness is synonymous with beautiful, with unlegislated connection to self and community, and also with monster." * Poetry Northwest *

"CD Eskilson’s debut, Scream / Queen, is full of slashes. The punctuation mark divides the book’s title and each of its sections. . . It joins pronouns (they/them) and characters with multiple names. And in a book that takes on horror, both in film and in life, the word slash itself expands to encompass many meanings. The slash’s prominence in this book challenges the very binary of division and integration, two extremes that the stories of trans, nonbinary, and queer people can be forced into. The reality that Eskilson evokes in their poems—experiences of actual trans and nonbinary people—is neither all anguished dysphoria nor all triumphant harmony. It’s much more complicated and interesting. . . . It’s tempting to say that Scream / Queen bends toward hope. It’s something we all desperately want right now. And there is a hope that springs up more often near the end of the book, but it’s spiky and grounded. . . . These are dim hours indeed, and Scream / Queen knows that slashers almost always have sequels."

* Colorado Review *

"Scream / Queen, CD Eskilson’s stunning debut poetry collection, uses the language of horror to examine inheritance—of the transgender body, the chronically ill body, the body viewed as monstrous. As it unfolds the gore and viscera of the early sections serves as fertilizer for the overwhelming bloom of healing and hope by the end of the text."

* Crab Orchard Review *
“In Scream / Queen, CD Eskilson unravels the ciphers of the celluloid closet, using horror as a lens and entry point into poems mapping transness, chronic illness, and familial trauma. These whip-smart, funny, tender, and lyrically inventive poems both pay homage to and critique horror, unwilling to overlook the genre's entanglement in ongoing moral panics surrounding transness. Though Eskilson stakes the claim that 'So much language,' the very building blocks of their craft, 'is a hunting ground,' and though this collection orbits a series of personal and historical violences, the beating heart at the core of Eskilson's poems is love—for the self, their community, family, partner, and for the genre of horror itself.” * torrin a. greathouse, author of "Wound from the Mouth of a Wound" and "DEED" *
“As preluded by the title of their gorgeously written book, CD Eskilson’s Scream / Queen conjures the throaty power of poetry in defiance of 'cruelty made quiet.' With deft formal innovation, these tremendous poems are aimed with command and compassion at the realities and the myths that would refuse trans love and liberation, forging new sacred possibilities from their sonic wakes, resolving to claim all the joy owed. As Eskilson says it, ‘I lick my lips,