Nestore, Angelo. “Impure Acts”, translated by Lawrence Schimel, Indolent Books, 2019

Brutally Lyrical

Amos Lassen

I have always wanted to be a poet but have been shy about sharing my poetic words with others yet I am perfectly comfortable sharing my prose. One of my guilty pleasures is, however, reading others poems and I do so every day. I have my poetry time set aside in my daily schedule. I came upon Lawrence Schimel’s translation of Angelo Nestore’s “Impure Acts” and literally wept as I read is brutal and beautiful lyricism wishing that I had been the one to put down such wonderful words. Schimel has always provided me with poetic food for thought and he has really outdone himself here. I experience fabulous joy and deep heartbreak as I read. Nestore writes of a different kind of desire than most of us have ever experiences. He is sure of himself and what he desires and the communicates that with his readers in a way I have yet to experience and until I do, my heart will probably be broken a bit. Nestore is liturgical to a degree and is well aware of the distance between himself, the poet his audience, the reader. We may never cross that bridge yet he shares ideas on how to do so.

“I want to raise suspicions,

have men shout at me in the streets…”

Using the Catholic idea of communion, he brings it a new meaning as he experiences as he takes it at his gym,

“The blonde boy looks exhausted.

I’m turned on by the sweat on his chin,

The candor of those beads soaking his towel.

I imagine myself crossing the threshold that separates us.

I open my mouth beneath his chin and stick out my tongue,

like a child kneeling before the altar.”

Néstore’s “Impure Acts” examines and explores ideas that have been passed down to us about gender, reproduction and desire and I shudder as I read the differences between what we have been told and what we actually experience ourselves. I certainly do not stand before the same altar as those that came before me and those that come after me will, too, have a different altar.

Looking at the four divisions of the collection, “The Body Almost”, “Pelicans Die of Hunger”, “Imagined Daughter” and “Songs to an Empty Crib”, we get an idea about what we are going to read before we actually do. Nestore announces that he belongs to a new kind of men, a race of this time that both celebrates and avenges the thoughts of something bigger out there. Yet, Nestore looks at fatherhood/motherhood and the idea that we, ourselves, are able to go against biological laws and civil codes. We are the masters of our fate and as such we can do and will do to remain so.

Nestore’s voice is filled with power and he should be read by every gay male, every gay female, every bisexual, every transgender, every cis-person. He should be read by everyone and as you read, revel in what he has to say. Let me just say that were it not for Lawrence Schimel’s stunning translation, we might have missed this altogether. Now that we have it, we should take it up.

“I shake off the hand that grips me, calls to me.

A foreign mass forms within and grows in the mystery.

I attain ecstasy.

I stain the earth with the final see of hope.”

Cory, Jim, editor. “Have You Seen This Man?: The Castro Poems of Karl Tierney” , (Arkansas Queer Poet), Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019.

Tierney’s Vocation

Amos Lassen

I find it fascinating that Karl Tierney was born in Massachusetts, the state where I presently live and that he earned an MFA from the University of Arkansas, a place where I used to teach. Had he lived a bit longer, I feel sure that our paths would have crossed. Tierney published more that 50 poems in magazines and anthologies before his death. In December of 1994 he became sick with AIDS and took his own life in October of 1995 by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. He was 39 years old. I believe that he would have loved seeing this book in print. The poems in “Have You Seen This Man?” are a tribute to the time that he lived and they are sharp and witty. For me, this is a reminder of how many lives were cut short by the terrible AIDS epidemic.

Jim Cory has done a wonderful job editing this collection and his introduction is brilliant. He brings us the range of Tierney’s talent and he takes us back to the 80s and 90s to San Francisco at the time when you could feel the pulse of sex everywhere even though we were being devastated by the epidemic. The poems that document the devastation impress me the most and I found myself weeping at times and grinning at other times. Tierney reminds us that even as we faced death and the disease, we did not stop dating and having fun.

Tierney and his poetry came into their own in the early 90s. He wrote with confidence and directness as he dealt with his own emotional conflicts. He really gets into it when he writes about love. He yearned for it and he searched for it relentlessly. I can only wonder if he would have found it before AIDS and suicide cut his life short.

I debated whether or not to share some lines from some of the poems and there are several that can stand alone but they mean so much more when read in their original form. However the real reason that I did not include them is because I want each of you to sit down with the book and relish every line. Don’t forget to think Jim Cory for his wonderful work here ad when you have a moment send a mental note to Karl Tierney. We all could use some of his wit right now.

Jimenez, Joe. “Rattlesnake Allegory”, Red Hen , 2019.

Solitary and Manhood

Amos Lassen

Human emotions seem to have no permanent form and they are varied among all of us. It would seem that we are familiar with joy but it also has its variations. Joe Jimenez looks at human emotions in “Rattlesnake Allegory” and thematically these poems are about “the moment inside the body / when joy is not born as much as it is made out of anything / the rest of the world doesn’t want.” 

We explore aloneness and manhood as articulations of want, desire and loss after transformative experiences. Jimenez writes personal poetry and how he got to know his body and “recognizing a queer brown body inextricably belonging to lineages of loss, and then realizing that some new body has emerged from where the old parts were lost or taken”.  “Lechuza Sketches” is a sequence of four poems that close the collection in which the poet speaker manifests the Tex-Mexican folkloric figure of a lechuza, the human-owl hybrid said to inhabit parts of South Texas and the Northern Mexican border. While this may not seem clear to you in this review, when you read the collection, everything will fall into place.

One summary review I read said that this is a collection of poems “about more deeply engaging with one’s queerness, one’s brownness, and understanding that there are parts inside us we never knew existed”. I would go a step further and say that these poems are about marginalization in a world that chooses not to see us as part of it. This can based upon skin color, sexuality, religion or anything that makes us feel different. “In the world, some part of us is often / unseen / & not glorious. / But what if we are? / Glorious. Seen.”

I have always felt that desire and loneliness go hand in hand and the longing that comes from these keeps us longing for love and acceptance. As I read here, my eyes often filled with tears and my skin itched as if to tell me that this is what wanting to be accepted is like. It should be no surprise that these is a sense of sensuosity here as well.

“The clock has whittled itself down to a minute,

& so it is time for this moment I am sharing

with you to end, which means you & I—

we are no longer alone.”

Jiménez’s poetic skill and use of repetition gives his poems a feeling of deep  intensity and sincerity., to the often-surprising and sparkling imagery. His imagery is powerful and his poems are brilliant and beautiful. Unfortunately, these poems may only be known to a select few who know him and his publisher. It is difficult to make people aware of new poets. I want people to read Jimenez so tell your friends about him. Jimenez writes what we feel.

“in a world, some part of us is often

unseen

& not glorious.

But what if we are?

          Glorious. Seen.

Glasgow, Matty Layne. “Deciduous Qween”, Red Hen, 2019.

Nature, Masculinity, and Heartbreak

Amos Lassen

I find beauty in personal poems probably because I wonder if I should even be reading them. But then again, if the poet put them out there, why not? Such is how I felt as I read Matty Layne Glasgow’s “Deciduous Qween”. Glasgow takes us on a walk through the queer world in which we live and how we adapt who we are to that world. I was reminded of a poem by the Israeli poet, Zelda who writes that we each have a name depending upon the situation we are in. We have the name we are given at birth by our parents and we have the name our elementary classmates called us. We have the name that our fellow teens used on us and the name we acquired with later study. We have the name our colleagues at work use and we have the name the way we dress implies, and so on. It is easy to substitute the word identity for name and how we, like our world, change identities when the need arises. We gain an identity based upon how we perform, whether as an actor, a doer or one who does not do.

Poet Glasgow looks at those moments in which our own truths and fears are not only present but when he confront our fears regarding death, loneliness, and failure. Like Glasgow I am from the south (New Orleans [but left it long ago]) and so I recognize his reflections on Southern Gothic mysticism that those who are not from the South have trouble understanding. He shares his thoughts on his childhood spent in Houston’s bayous, his adolescence that was filled with curiosity and shame, and losing his mother when he was a young adult.

After the opening poem, “Beaver As a Fairy Drag Mother”, Glasgow divides his book among five sections in which he looks at the simple things we lose in life (i.e. teeth, body shape and do on). What we do not lose are the scars of what we lost. But all is not loss for there is also gain.

Each of the five sections begin with a poem named “Deciduous Qween” as if to remind us that not only are we reading these poems; we are experiencing what they have to say. The “Deciduous Qween” poems connect the five sections  but you will have to feel that for yourselves. Each sections has its own special and unique feel.

For me, the most important aspect of this collection is that the marginalized speak here. We are seen and heard. Glasgow’s images are precise and sensual, the lines are musical, and his language is exciting.

This is a collection of free verse and prose poems that are haunting and give insight into experiences of the poet as a gay man in Houston’s bayous and there is universality here. I can promise you that you will see yourself more than once in the collection.
A word to remember; there is a lot of sexuality here especially in section four and it is graphic but then what is non-graphic sex?

I want to close this review with a short sample and for that here is “haiku for my first boyfriend on his twentieth-eighth birthday”:

queer, another year.

my how all those years (and queers)

have loosened your rear.

Blanco, Richard. “How to Love a Country: Poems”, Beacon, 2019.

Issues of Our Times

Amos Lassen

“How to Love a Country: Poems” is a new collection from Obama inaugural poet Richard Blanco who here  explores immigration, gun violence, racism, LGBTQ issues and more.  Blanco is so much more than a poet— he is a memoirist, public speaker, educator, and advocate who cares about connecting to “the heart of human experience and our shared identity as a country.”  With this new book, he continues to invite a conversation with all Americans “through an oracular yet intimate and accessible voice”. He looks at the complexities and contradictions of our nationhood and the unresolved sociopolitical matters that affect us all.”

The topics of the poems vary from the Pulse Nightclub massacre; an unexpected encounter on a visit to Cuba; the forced exile of 8,500 Navajos in 1868; a lynching in Alabama; the arrival of a young Chinese woman at Angel Island in 1938; the incarceration of a gifted writer; and Blanco’s love for his partner, who he is finally allowed to marry as a gay man. Even with each poem’s topic they are all struggling with the question of how to love this country.

As he looks for answers, Blanco probes the history and sensibility of the United States and interrogates our past and present, grieve our injustices, and pay heed to the  flaws. He but also remembers to celebrate our ideals and hold on to our hopes. Blanco reveals himself to readers in a disarming and kinetic sequence of stanzas of the poem that is the centerpiece of his collection and in which he tries to find his place in the physical and emotional landscapes of our country.

Blanco’s poems fray the fabric of the American narrative and pursues a resolution to this country’s” inherent contradiction of our nation’s psyche and mandate: e pluribus unum (out of many, one).” The poems “assert that America could and ought someday to be a country where all narratives converge into one, a country we can all be proud to love and where we can all truly thrive.”

Today we are a country at odds with itself and with its history and Richard Blanco’s is one of indignation and insurrection. By writing about the  stories that nurture us and the stories we’d rather forget, we learn anew the ways to love our country and our people.  The poems are
“vibrant, tragic, exhilarating, deeply in love with people and their stories and heartbreakingly engaged with our struggling nation.” Blanco sees America as a work in progress.

Richard Blanco’s new collection is a  hymn of love to those who make America their home and give her their loyalty.

Beam Jeffery. “Spectral Pegasus / Dark Movements”, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, artist, Kin Press, 2019.

A Very Special Book

Amos Lassen

There is an unwritten rule somewhere that reviewers are not to have favorites and I am a supreme breaker of that rule. I have my favorites but I do not usually say who they are even though some of my readers will say that it is obvious. Speaking of poetry, Jeffery Beam holds a special place in my heart and I make no secrets about loving his poetry. However it has been quite a few years since I had something new by him to read. Even better than that is a CD that comes with Beam’s new collection which is intense and knocked me over. I had almost forgotten how much I love the language we speak and write with.

”Spectral Pegasus / Dark Movements” is, quite simply, glorious and it could not have arrived at a better time. I have always been the kind of a guy who turns to poetry when things are not so good (that does not mean that I don’t read poetry when times are good). Not only are these poems special, they come with wonderful illustrations thanks to Welsh painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Beam and Hicks-Jenkins take us  on a wonderful journey— a hero’s journey that goes through “death, resurrection, psychological and spiritual trials, and revelations into redemptive vision.” The places where we stop form a microcosm of our own society. We begin with the  death of the painter’s father,  we have two narrations going on at the same time—the poetic narrative and the visual narrative and these come together in myth and dreams. There is something feral about the poems which is probably the result of confronting with dark forces and bringing back knowledge that had fallen away over time. To know is to heat and to heal is to look within oneself remembering that pain is there to remind us that something is not right. Pain, be it mental or physical comes to guide us to where it can be alleviated.

“The dead have died a thousand times

for they have died in me

I climb the signal tower each time I bend my knee…”

This collection has twenty-one full color illustrations, sixteen poems, and illuminating essays by Sarah Parvin, Mary-Ann Constantine, and Claire Pickard.  From what we read we are able to get a vision of hope. William Rossetti reminds us that we will not be waylaid by those who came before us. We must look to our alienation and face it head on if we are to heal. We can renew ourselves and our world. We see that in the poetry and its illustrations here and we are reminded that the early drawings on the walls of caves was communication back then and it is the lack of communication that forces us into isolation. I could feel a sense of renewal as I read.

We are also reminded that art began in the caves of the Paleolithic world and in those caves ritual, religion, painting and song were born. By its very nature this is a provocative book and we need to remember that the purpose of literature was to provoke. Ever since I read ‘Frankenstein:, Mary Shelley has provoked me to understand that we all read differently. I found a sense of rebirth with this book and the way it sees  modern suffering.”  Of course it helps that Beam is a wordsmith and writes beautifully and that Hinks-Jenkins draws from his inner being. I always find poetry difficult to review because it appeals to the emotions and it forms a bond between writer and reader. What I see is just that; my perception of the magical verses that Beam writes and the stunning artwork of Hicks-Jenkins becomes mine and I am not sure that I want to share what came to me from what I read and experienced here. I totally fell in love with “The Big Bang: River Jordan” and was amazed at the research done to try to find out what this poem is  all about. I lived on a kibbutz in Israel in the Jordan Valley and I thought my knowledge of the area was good if not perfect. I was surprised to see how much I did not before.

“I am the Bastard Angel and the Virgin Devil

I am  Again and Then and Was and Ever”.

In closing, let me just say that I am overwhelmed as often happens when reading something new. Here I read of old ideas clad in semi-modern or modern  finery and they are very different now but then so are we. I urge you to read and savor what is here.  Think of this book like wine— it gets better as it ages.