The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Best Best Dressed of 2025

This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 8 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed in 2025.

Merrick’s next selection for the best of 2025 is from I could die today and live again by Summer Farah (Game Over Books 2023).

IN GERUDO VALLEY

women stand tall
henna shining in the sunlight
& find a husband

women sell watermelon
along city fountains
curved sword in hand

when myths come alive
thunder crackles
women control the heavens
in order to protect our sand

            with coins adorning their ears
            women leave home
            & never return.

            in the desert
            women die
            from beasts piloted by no one

            in holy spaces
            we adorn bodies in oil
            with broken hearts
            our trees our waters
            even the lost join the lament

Summer Farah is a Palestinian American writer, editor, and zine-maker from California. Her chapbook I could die today and live again (Game Over Books, 2024) explores a childhood corrupted by empire, inspired by The Legend of Zelda. Summer is a member of the Radius of Arab American Writers and the National Book Critics Circle. Her debut full-length collection, The Hungering Years, is forthcoming from Host Publications in 2026. She is calling on you to recommit yourself to the liberation of the Palestinian people each day.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality,BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.