D I Y Body

In D I Y BODY, Toni Garcia-Butler crafts a vibrant, defiant exploration of identity, inheritance, and self-making at the intersections of Black, Filipino, southern, and Trans/queer experience. Through poems that move between memory, performance, and everyday ritual, Garcia-Butler builds a body not given, but claimed piece by piece, voice by voice. These poems are alive with sound and movement: karaoke bars become sites of transformation, kitchens hold the ghosts of lineage and love, and mosh pits offer fleeting freedom from misrecognition. This chapbook is a proclamation of naming, desire, family, and belonging, an insistence on the right to define the self beyond expectation or constraint.

"WHEN I FIRST encountered Toni Garcia-Butler's work, I recognized that feeling I've come to trust as a publisher. It's the one that says: pay attention, something is happening here. Something electric. These poems carry that kind of energy. Garcia-Butler reminds us that identity is not something handed over cleanly. It is something we build, protect, and celebrate, often in the same breath. This book holds exactly what I hoped the Arkansas Queer Poet Series would become: a space for voices that are rooted, rising, and reshaping what it means to belong." - Bryan Borland, Arkansas Queer Poet Series Curator

TONI GARCIA-BUTLER (he/they) is a poet and community artist rooted in Little Rock, Arkansas. He believes artists are cultural historians and memory keepers. His writing and art center the lived experiences of his people: Black, Fil-am, southern, Trans/queer, and everyone existing within the margins. As a facilitator, Toni encourages folks to empower themselves through DIY publishing and zinemaking, personal narrative, and creative joy. Toni was named by the Arkansas Times as "Best Poet of Arkansas" in 2025.