‘Left-handed’ by Jonathan Galassi
Posted on April 30, 2012 by Michael Klein in Poetry, Reviews
That a renowned editor and chief at a famous publishing house (Jonathan Galassi, Farrar Strauss & Giroux) should come out of the closet in middle age and be the subject of an article in The New York Times seems pretty odd in this day and age – particularly when the piece reads like a gossip column concerning, among other things, his supposed affair with literary agent/superstar/crack addict Bill Clegg (a picture of whom accompanies the article). Galassi was married to a woman and had kids before all this happened and it was a torturous break up, all of which his new book of poems, Left-handed – the article goes on to say – delves into, in part. (more…)
‘Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems’ by David Trinidad
Posted on March 23, 2012 by Shane Michael Manieri in Poetry, Reviews
Like his predecessors, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, David Trinidad is not afraid of confession. In Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems (Turtle Point Press) he states in the poem, “Anne Sexton Visits Court Green,” that he (a friend named Thomas) admires “her courage to use material from her own life—/so free of English conventions of decorum” and it’s as if Trinidad is revealing something about himself. (more…)
‘Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality’ Edited by Kevin Simmonds
Posted on March 14, 2012 by David Eye in Poetry, Reviews
“[H]ow can we explain we haven’t turned away / but returned by different paths, fairy, pantheist, Jew/ . . . . We’re so old we’re brand new.” —Dan Bellm, “Brand new”
Grace (in Christian belief) is “the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.” But this remarkable (and grace-ful) collection of poems turns it around: we aren’t the sinners here; we are instead placed in the position of bestowing blessings (or not). As editor Kevin Simmonds puts it in the introduction, this anthology is the first in which LGBTIQ poets “claim their place . . . regardless of man-made labels or boundaries.”
These poems are as varied in how they respond to “faith, religion, and spirituality” as they are in tone, which ranges from somber to sexy, comic to cosmic. Many of these poems, read individually, are superb, and represent offerings by some of our finest established writers, alongside relative newcomers. But/and there is a collective brilliance here that makes more of this book than mere anthology. (more…)
‘Glow of Our Sweat’ by Francisco Aragón
Posted on March 7, 2012 by Richard Blanco in Poetry, Reviews
Coming out is a process as endless as its audiences, Francisco Aragón aptly quotes Kenji Yoshino in Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press), Aragón’s latest book, which is really two books in one. The first part is a collection of poems, but the key to truly appreciating these poems comes from reading the Part II: “Flyer, Closet, Poem,” a single prose piece, a journal in time through which Aragón fleshes out Kenjo Yoshimo words exploring this seemingly infinite process of coming out and its relationship to his—our—many audiences. (more…)
‘I Want to Make You Safe’ By Amy King
Posted on March 6, 2012 by Jocelyn Heath in Poetry, Reviews
Amy King’s poems aren’t a walk in the park. They’re a hustle down a city street, an unflinching look at what can be found: a rusted car, a lawn chair, a bright thread snagged on a fence. They’re not always pretty, and they’re rarely easy, but they force us to see that which we would discount to the detriment of our own cognizance. (more…)
‘Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys’ by D.A. Powell
Posted on February 23, 2012 by Jaime Shearn Coan in Poetry, Reviews
In D.A. Powell’s fifth book, he takes up the landscapes of the Central Valley. Like Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the places of these poems feel sometimes historical and sometimes conjectured; possibly the same as the rest, possibly like none other. Unlike Marco Polo, Calvino’s explorer-protagonist, Powell’s speaker is of the town. He shows us the churches and the malls, the housing developments and the gay bars, the parking lots and the fields (yes, there are naughty times to be had in all); in short, he gives a guided tour of the boonies. In “Tender Mercies,” the speaker merges with the landscape: (more…)
‘Black Marks on White Paper’ by Michelle Antoinette Nelson (Love the Poet)
Posted on February 6, 2012 by Courtney Gillette in Poetry, Reviews
One book cannot contain Michelle Antoinette Nelson, better known as LOVE the poet. The young Baltimore writer gained her monkier from the poetry slams she hosted in college, at which she had her audience chant “Love!” after each poet read. At thirty-one, Love is a multi-talented performer and poet, with a short film, several spoken word albums, and an HBO appearance under her belt. Her first book of poems, Black Marks on White Paper (self-published), is a hefty volume of Love’s confident voice. “I am black, gay, and a woman born in America,” Love said in an interview with Lambda Literary. “My work is a reflection of what I have seen and experienced as the complete opposite of what and who is deemed ‘the norm’ in America. Sometimes my perspective may be just as ‘normal’ as anyone else’s, or it could be completely to the left of the general consensus.” It’s a perspective that is loud on the page. (more…)
‘Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry’ Edited by Julie R. Enszer
Posted on January 26, 2012 by Angela Stubbs in Poetry, Reviews
What does it mean to be a Jewish writer? To write about the Jewish Lesbian experience? How do we passionately engage with thinking about identity while considering the intersection of both lesbian and Jewish politics and the inherent aversion to labels? This collection of poetry offers several insights into the hermeneutics of identity in literature and religion. (more…)
‘Cow’ by Susan Hawthorne
Posted on January 18, 2012 by Jocelyn Heath in Poetry, Reviews
Red cow, blue cow, black cow. A golden calf and a moon-jumping heifer. Figures that often grace pastoral landscapes or children’s books have wandered into the realm of poetry. Susan Hawthorne’s latest collection, Cow, blends the bovine figure with ancient mythologies to re-envision history for modern women.
As the title suggests, the cow is the conceit around which the mythology develops. Queenie, matriarch of the imagined herd, guides readers through the deeply woman-centered world of myth, nature, and spirituality set in an imaginary long-ago. Notable women of myth, including Demeter and Persephone, are refigured in bovine form for these tales.
It would be easy to dismiss the concept as elementary, or accuse Hawthorne of not treating serious subjects seriously enough. But the veneer of mythic whimsy allows her to take risks with content and form that would fall flat in more conventional verse. Hawthorne has much to say about the “big issues,” as it were, and cow narrative allows her to touch on these broader concerns without becoming pedantic.
The opening poem sets the clear, if fine-lined, balance between exploration and manifesto. Though she acknowledges the powerful influence of “unspoken histories / genocides / eliminations of the unwanted,” she is aware of the dangers of “erasure,” and rewriting history for one’s own purposes. As such, she centers the poem around:
intersecting worlds
the moment I see the centipede
pulling its hundred legs
over the rim of the wall above my line of sight
ein Blick into another world
The intersections of man and beast, nature and civilization, myth and fantasy give Hawthorne “ein Blick” into what has been erased that she may draw it out again. It’s impossible to give a representative sample of such a long and thematically complex book, but among the highlights are her treatments of feminist ideas, relationships, spirituality, and language itself. In “what Queenie says about the sun cow,” the title cow takes a vacation “because she had worked / for too long / for too many” and was “tired of being / at the beck and call of everyone”. In punishment, the male god who claims ownership of the sun cow labels her female companions “demons” and slaughters them, all the while forcing the sun cow back to her labors. On a lighter note, Hawthorne takes a turn through metapoetics in “what Queenie says about Sanskrit,” describing language as “perpendicular / roots elude her / gerunds are thick with meaning.”
One of the wonderful freedoms resulting from the sense of play in the book is the latitude Hawthorne has to also “play” with her form and language. The poems have little to no punctuation, relying on line and stanza break to shape their emphasis. Phrases become unpastured cows, in a sense, forming themselves into organic combinations that roll off a reader’s tongue: “fish fin swims by beneath / the water’s edge / cow flank is a night feather against my shoulder”. Here, all the elements merge linguistically in a way that mirrors their harmonious coexistence in the poem.
Similarly, in diction, Hawthorne returns to the basics without seeming clichéd. The sun, the moon, the sea, the mountains—all of these grace the simplified landscape of times long past. Such simplicity gives way to moments of quiet beauty: “her gaze complex as chaos / fragile as a fractal” and “moon wing floats overhead in the dark / of the lunar moth” among them.
The collection’s shining moments are those that walk the line between the mythic and the real. In particular, “what the lovers say” bears only a few traces of the bovine. It also splits in voice: in each part, one stanza in third person and the other in first. Thus it opens itself up to reading as a poem of love between two women who sleep “my nose against yours / two bodies / sleeping” . The setting details of this poem are lovely: “yellow petals / frame her want a sickle moon carves a hollow space of memory” and “morning’s messenger is blushed pink sunrise”. Most breathtaking is a myth moment reframed into desire and adulation, as “she looks down the throat of her lover there inside the mouth / galactic swirl” .
At more than 150 pages, Cow is far longer than a standard poetry collection, which poses a challenge for readers used to more tightly edited selections of poems. Admittedly, it is also not easy to keep track of the diverse cast of characters who come and go throughout the pages of the manuscript. For the patient, philosophical reader, however, Cow is a delightful reclamation of the distant past for women.
Cow
By Susan Hawthorne
Spinifex Press
Paperback, 9781876756888, 166pp
September 2011
‘The Weary World Rejoices’ by Steve Fellner
Posted on January 9, 2012 by Rigoberto Gonzalez in Poetry, Reviews
In the poem “St. Sebastian,” the speaker ponders: “How many St. Sebastian statues/ can I give as coming out gifts?” As the complex figure representing homoerotic desire and emotional/ physical torture, St. Sebastian is well-situated at the center of Steve Fellner’s hard-edged second poetry collection, which doesn’t disguise or sugar-coat the more disturbing scenarios of gay men’s lives. Indeed, Fellner writes with disarming honesty, even acerbity, as he walks past the posturing of skinny pants and pretty boy poetics to infuse the idealized queer lifestyle (more…)
