'THE ELDER FEMME AND OTHER STONE WRITINGS'
Book, 2021
Edited by Pântano Books
The book had a Thai version published in Thailand, supported by the Portuguese Embassy in
Thailand and Plaka.Porto.
The Elder Femme and Other Stone Writings is Odete’s first poetry collection. What starts as an essayistic archaeology searching for traces of transgender lives in mythical Antiquity soon branches off into myriad poetic and visual forms, from intimate free verses and scribbled notes to historical reports, earthy speculations, and magical enchantments. Weaving both English and her native Portuguese, there is a porosity and impermanence to Odete’s language. Equally evocative and testimonial, the book offers, in Odete’s own words, a “paranoid archaeology” that dilutes the borders between the personal and the collective. The Elder Femme works as portal, voicing those that came before and those still to come, as in its opening poem: “one day/ i’ll thank her/ my mother/ for teaching me/ how to glue/ shattered vases”.
