Tenderness of Glass

Jodi has been hearing voices since they were a child. Their favorite voice is WIm, the voice of their wiser self or wise mind. In times of crisis, she comforts them with details of their future. They named her WIm and she consented. The letter "I" in her name is intentionally capitalized because her voice is for Jodi, about Jodi and no one else can hear her. She even speaks like Jodi but softer, with more breath and nasality. Jodi began a practice of notating what WIm told them during their last hospitalization. 15 years later, what began in orange crayon at Bellevue Psychiatric, has resulted in this book, The Tenderness of Glass.

Part memoir and part manifesto, The Tenderness of Glass, is a non-traditional book of narrative verse and prose poetry. Each of the book's six parts are named after a Tibetan Buddhist Bardo. Beginning with the "Bardo of Life," we follow the Goddess Palden Lhamo through the underworld to her next chosen body. The body she chooses is Jodi-

transgender and native of the Pacific Islands, raised with abuse in the United States.

In the the "Bardo of Dreams" we enter the psychiatric hospital; a world where the spirit is distorted by heavy medication. Having "fallen out of love with life," the narrative is pushed by love and loving in the "Bardo of Meditation." From love comes the inspired "Bardo of Dying "where the reincarnation of the Goddess takes form in the many lives of Queen Búrté. Spiritual luminosity restores the Queen to their rightful throne as the Queen of Tibet. The last part of the book, "The Bardo of Becoming," is a vision for the destruction of an apocalyptic future. From the wrath of this destruction, humanity is led to a new nirvana..