Edited by Parel Joy and Luke Worthy
Book of the Month: November 2026
Reviewed by Zain Rishi
What does the poetry anthology mean today? For some people, the thought of flipping through volumes of assorted poets could not be less enticing. For others, it’s the total opposite. I fall in that foggy middle ground of having many anthologies that I love, but still find engaging with them to be an intimidating task. It’s annoying to me that the majority of poetry sections in bookshops – so often already under-browsed – begin here: the vast, anthologised ocean upon which we float untethered.
I want to love the anthology. I want to be excited, to discover new voices, to carry it everywhere and recommend it above and beyond the collections I love too. There have been some brilliant bodies of work in recent years especially: Bi+ Lines (ed. Helen Bowell), Nature Matters (ed. Mona Arshi, Karen McCarthy Woolf), and You Must Live (ed. Tayseer Abu Odeh, Sherah Bloor) – to name just three. Fantastic anthologies balance their careful curation with a clear sense of purpose and identity. They need to spark and crackle off the page, to leave you wanting just a bit more.
We ought to add The Rush (ed. Parel Joy, Luke Worthy) to the list of anthology saviours. There is hope yet! What does hope look like? ‘A place where queer pleasure isn’t apologised for or sanitised, but preserved in language before it evaporates into the air,’ is a manifesto with which Joy and Worthy lead us into this project. It could not be more apt. The poems of The Rush teeter between poles of tenderness, tension and erotic bliss, and yet in all cases what remains true is their unapologeticness. Their refusal to filter. Their symphonic, bellowing YES to the cacophony of queer desire.
In the spirit of this, a YES to form. I adored how some poems fill the entire two page spread, the title cleaved by the seam. These longer pieces, such as Blush Bullseye’s hilarious and expertly judged prose poem ‘Grow a Vagina’ as well as Briana Armson’s ‘Princess & the Popper’ which brings the anthology to a euphoric conclusion, punctuate the anthology and sit well alongside shorter pieces. We go from Ash Burnel’s experimental, list-like piece into Patrick Paridee Samuel’s staccato ‘Beefcake’ which begins:
‘The point of lists
is useless if
items remain
uncrossed…’
A cunning transition. Joy and Worthy achieve this throughout The Rush, guiding us in and out of these separate words with humour and sensitivity.
A YES also to language. I’m thinking of Eden Chicken’s ‘vibing room carousels every body blitzed to one’ (‘Raw / Mouthful of Dirt’), of India Lawrence Glover’s ‘I am dancing with my bones exposed’ (‘Frankenstein’s Monster Goes to the Club’), and of Meredith MacLeod Davidson’s declaration: ‘Clearly, I pronounce myself husband and wife’ (‘Of Paradise’). There is a glorious sense of momentum to The Rush, and by the time it ends you already want to return to the beginning, to simmer in softer moments such as Troy Cabida’s ‘Mirror Stage’ and Connor Kirwan’s ‘Steam Room’:
‘What remains of boyhood forms
ectoplasmic pearls on the ceiling.’
A final YES to the project itself. The publisher, Dykehouse Press, is Joy’s own creation, founded in 2022 with roots in the Netherlands, Scotland and North England. Radical, trans-inclusive, and DIY with every publication having its own unique printing, Dykehouse are paving the way for punk, countercultural publishing while also establishing a standard for the mainstream: the books are affordably priced, the events are free where possible, and all contributors are paid. The Rush is their first broader queer publication and the most international in scope yet. I am grateful to have discovered so many wonderful writers in its pages and, vitally, to have reembraced the beauty of the anthology through the quiet work of Joy and Worthy in arranging it with beauty and poise.
You can find The Rush at the following stockists: Category Is Books, Burning House Books, Aye Aye Books, Good Press, Typewronger Books, Somerville Books, Juno Books, BOOKS Peckham, The People’s Letters, The Feminist Library, The Library Project, and San Serriffe Amsterdam.
The Rush is published by DykeHouse Press.
Zain Rishi is a writer based in Edinburgh and Gutter’s Poetry Reviews Editor.