Beautiful Malady by Ennis Rook Bashe

Release date: 2023
Genre: Poems
Means of reading: Physical copy
Review:

Ennis Rook Bashe has spun a beautiful, soft, supernatural world into the poems contained within their newest published work, BEAUTIFUL MALADY. To keep poetic pieces varied enough to explore multiple perspectives, and stitch together a sense of a world outside our reality is incredibly difficult to ask of a writer, but Bashe has managed it seemingly flawlessly. Further than that, the world they’ve created not only talks about the disabled body, but celebrates it as a thing of beauty. 

To go beyond discussing and critiquing ableism has been a rare and sometimes difficult ask of a fiction writer, with many (myself included) finding it too tempting to tap into the trauma of our experiences to help others understand the nuance of emotions that come with disability.  However, Bashe explores how we view the body itself, not in the way of traditional disability, but how to grieve losing a pair of wings. At the same time, they discuss what can be a cosier cripple reality of sometimes just staying in bed with your cat chasing sunbeams.

They touch upon folklore and myths several times, taking us to meet characters that are familiar such as Changelings (migratory legend type 5805), calling and call back to darker times for Disabled children which we see explored in stories more frequently now, as in UNSEELIE, published in 2023.

Overall, BEAUTIFUL MALADY is a pocket-sized collection of intermingling disabled imagination, joy, and grief. We appreciate the opportunity to read this collection of work and hope to see more of Ennis Rook Bashe’s writing in the future!