SciFi/Fantasy Poetry Collection Review: Beautiful Malady by Ennis Rook Bashe

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on June 5, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Beautiful Malady is a collection of speculative poetry, dealing with queerness and disability and the modern and speculative treatment of those who suffer from disability. The collection is short but powerful and contains a number of self-contained but related poems as well as a series of 8 poems which actually tells a complete short story in poetic form.

This'll be a short review, as you'd expect from something this short in page length, and I should note here quickly that I'm not a huge fan of or really a good judge of poetry. So take my words here with a grain of salt. But Beautiful Malady worked for me pretty well, really hitting home the struggles of the disabled to be taken seriously when they say their bodies are in pain, to not be laughed at when they suffer or seek treatment, and to not be treated as lesser when they try to simply live their lives like anyone else with what accomodations they require. Disabled people are people, and not in any way lesser, and the disabled perhaps (as noted in a at least one poem) are better able to recognize when they should rely on accomodations like a cane than the prideful healthy-bodied who should use one when they get old and less able.

Bashe uses speculative ideas and concepts (Fae and Changlings, Princes and Ghost Bodyguards, etc.) to illustrate these themes really well, and does include in the end a strong autobiographical piece on their own struggle and their struggle to write about it. And the aforementioned 8 part story of poems, Rose Ghost, is really great as it showcases a girl whose disability makes her body barely able to function, so she's given the ability to become a ghost who can serve as a bodyguard for the royal prince, with whom she falls in love. A really excellent way to begin and end this collection, as its first and eighth parts bookend the poems. So yeah, despite me not being a poetry guy, I recommend this one.