Reviews (2)

"Let men say what they will."
This collection of poems of love, longing, sadness, A lovely read
This is a great book that spans the spectrum of gay love.There are some incredible things in here and reading a sonnet, I could not contain myself, I was laughing and blushing in the bookstore.Well worth getting as a gift to yourself or anyone who needs to hear in great words the things they feel so well. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthologies (multiple authors)    2. Gays    3. Love poetry    4. Poetry    5. Sexuality In Literature   

Reviews (1)

A strong poetic voice
I knew the poet during my studies at Stanford University and was thus interested in reading his verse.I first read some anthologized poems, then stumbled upon this collection.Cassells is a highly talented poetwith a magical command of language.His best poems are the ones on generalthemes (Down from the Houses of Magic, A Schadrach Chorus) in which hefuses keen observation with an excellent ear and thereby creates anexquisite music.He is one of very few living authors that can send me tomy dictionary to look up a word, witnessing to his vast storehouse oflanguage.I found the sequence of poems on AIDS victims moving, butperhaps a touch too self-absorbed -- more like journal entries thanhighly-crafted works of art.Not that I can fault him for this, since thepoems evidently issued from very grievous personal losses; but asmentioned, he is better in the other poems.If there is anything tocriticize in his work it is that there is scarcely any lightness orjoviality -- no witty edge to relieve the weighty and lugubrious subjectshe broods over.Perhaps an even more mature Cassells will be able toincorporate this dimension into his voice. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. African American Poetry    2. African American gays    3. African Americans    4. American    5. American Contemporary Poetry    6. Gay men    7. Poetry   

Reviews (1)

IF YOU LOVE LIMERICKS, YOU'LL LOVE THIS BOOK
You don't have to be gay to enjoy these limericks, but you have to be ready for some bawdiness and you've got to be prepared to laugh. It seemsthat a lot of people write limerick, but only a very few write good ones.This author is one of those talented fellows who fill a book with oneclever limerick after another. This book is a must for limerick lovers,regardless of their sexual orientation. A good laugh, gay or straight, is agood laugh! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American    2. American - General    3. Form - Limericks & Verse    4. Gay Studies    5. Poetry    6. Reference    7. Social Science    8. Sociology    9. Sociology, Social Studies   

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Poetry    3. American English    4. Black studies    5. Gay studies (Gay men)    6. Works by individual poets: from c 1900 -   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. African American authors    3. American - General    4. American Contemporary Poetry (Anthologies)    5. American poetry    6. Gay men    7. Poetry    8. English    9. Poetry anthologies: from c 1900 -    10. USA   

Reviews (4)

the house that jack built
A must for anyone interested in 1 of the 3 greatest poets [writing in english] circa 1950 to present. Gizzi's essay is illuminating and steers clear of obfuscating what Spicer meant by "dictation" and the "outside".

Dynamics of Dictation and The Love of the Game
The House That Jack Built is a must have for any serious poet or reader of poetry and poetics.Spicer's lectures on dictation, the serial poem, and the practice of reading lay a foundation for the art of writing poetry that is without default.His ideas are instrumental in poetry's process.Peter Gizzi's afterword enlivens the spirit of Spicer's practice and makes it available to the reader.Exhibiting a close relationship with Spicer's work and method, Gizzi both completes and opens the material discussed in the lectures.A stellar accomplishment.

A wonderful book until Gizzi starts writing
This book is simply amazing as Jack Spicer had amazing martian forces driving him. The lectures are excellently transcribed and annotated. This part of the book holds amazing inspiration. Where the book fails is thatGizzi decided to start writing about Jack. I could hardly begin to read histacked on essay before putting the book down in disgust. Jack spoke forhimself just fine. The essay belongs somewhere else. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Authorship    3. Essays    4. Literary Collections    5. Literary Criticism    6. Literature: Classics    7. Poetry    8. Serial poetry    9. Spicer, Jack    10. American English    11. Gay studies (Gay men)    12. Literary Criticism & Collections / Essays    13. Other prose: from c 1900 -   

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Gay    3. General    4. Poetry    5. Poetry texts & anthologies   

Subjects:  1. Gay men    2. Gay men's writings, American    3. Ginsberg, Allen,    4. Love poetry, American    5. Poetry    6. Modern fiction   

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Gay Studies    4. Gay men    5. Poetry   

Subjects:  1. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    2. Gay, John, 1685-1732    3. Poetry    4. English    5. Poetry & poets: 16th to 18th centuries    6. Poetry / Single Author / British & Irish    7. Works by individual poets: 16th to 18th centuries   

Subjects:  1. Jeff Mann, poetry, gay, gay studies    2. Poetry / Single Author / American   

Reviews (1)

Excitement of a New Palmer
LOGICALOGICS may be Ronald Palmer's first book of poems, but it has the assurance and swagger of one who's been around the block and up and down the waterfront more than once.We've been needing a poet like Palmer for as long as I can remember, and if he hadn't existed, it would have been necessary for one of us, or a committee, to invent him.A poet who is comfortable with politics and sex as he is with Blanchot and Wittgenstein, and who seems to have diverted streams of Language-centered poetry into the spurting stream of spoken word and performance derived, oral-based, shamanic diagetics, Ronald Palmer has the real thing going on, and his book is the answer to a maiden's dream in more ways than one would have thought possible.
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Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Coming out (Sexual orientation    4. Coming out (Sexual orientation)    5. Gay Studies    6. Gay youth    7. Poetry    8. Problem families   

Reviews (1)

Finding manifestations of holiness in earthly things
Written by Timothy Liu, editor of "Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry", Hard Evidence is a unique and original collection of free-form verse concerning such matters as finding manifestations of holiness in earthly things, gay sexuality, and the cruel legacy of the virus that causes AIDS. Hard evidence is eye-opening, thought-provoking poetry that flows from page to page, almost as if all part of one grand poem. Binoculars left in the backseat/of your car. Tread marks leading/to a flattened toad with flies/crawling over it. Those pagodas/in the distance somehow made/a difference - joss sticks stuck/in giant urns burnishing in the air. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - Asian American    2. American - General    3. Asian Americans    4. Gay men    5. Poetry    6. Gay Studies    7. Asian Studies   

Subjects:  1. General    2. Poetry    3. General & Literary Fiction    4. Literature of special Gay interest   

Reviews (9)

A remarkable book -- one of the best in a long time
This is contemporary poetry at its best, using language gracefully,searching for completely new ways to write, digging into the marrow of thehuman psyche in order to tell us something about ourselves that has neverbeen expressed before. I'm a big admirer of Koestenbaum's and this is hisbest book to date, more challenging that the formal perfection of AnnaMoffo, and diving even further into the experimental depths thanRhapsodies. Highly recommended if you're a lover of American poetry -- thisguy is the real thing.

An Irresistible Narcissism
If Koestenbaum is a Narcissist, as so many reviewers have claimed, he's the smartest and sharpest one to come along for a long while.This book gains its strength from what the other reviewers are criticizing it for: its honesty and its self-examination.But while this introspective,melancholy boy marches out across classic confessional territory, thecadence of that march and the intricacy of the imagery should make the oldschool blush.I thoroughly enjoyed this wild ride, and I was moved,imagining myself as that "I," the "self" without the"pity."

An Irresistible Narcissism
If Koestenbaum is a Narcissist, as so many reviewers have claimed, he's the smartest and sharpest one to come along for a long while.This book gains its strength from what the other reviewers are criticizing it for: its honesty and its self-examination.But while this introspective,melancholy boy marches out across classic confessional territory, thecadence of that march and the intricacy of the imagery should make the oldschool blush.I thoroughly enjoyed this wild ride, and I was moved,imagining myself as that "I," the "self" without the"pity." ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Gay men    4. Poetry    5. English    6. Literature: Texts    7. USA   

Subjects:  1. Europe    2. Europe - General    3. European - General    4. Gay Studies    5. History    6. History - General History    7. History and criticism    8. History: World    9. Love    10. Middle East - Turkey    11. Modern - 16th Century    12. Social aspects    13. Turkey    14. Turkish poetry    15. Family & relationships   

Reviews (1)

Wow!
Blanco is the real deal. So much poetry today is bland, plain vanilla, like art that people walk by quickly in a museum to get to the gift shop or say they've been there. Blanco is anything but. Directions to the Beach, if anything, is even more fiery than his first volume, the award-winning City of a Hundred Fires. Blanco takes us everywhere--we are on a journey: through the Straits of Messina, to Paris, New York, Miami. We meet lovers (here you will find a series of "for" poems like no others--for M.C., C.S.B., B.L), friends, family members (my favorites: Abuelo and Abuela). Here are the things and stuff of poetry--a world like no other. America: give us a poetry that speaks to our finest sensibilities; that tells the truth about family, love, loss, beauty and joy. Give us the sensuous detail. Give us all of this in language (or rather languages--for what are our languages if not English and Spanish?). The leavened bread; the deep red wine.
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Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Ancient, Classical & Medieval    3. Cuban Americans    4. Gay men    5. Poetry   

Subjects:  1. 20th Century English Poetry    2. English poetry    3. Gay men    4. Gay men's writings, American    5. Gay men's writings, English    6. Poetry   

Reviews (1)

Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis
This edition contains the two best pieces of Wilde's writing.The poem "Ballad" is strong in its sense of poetry and imagery without being sing-songy.De Profundis, while a little difficult to wade throughat certain points, simply captures many of life's truths and sets them downin the written word, to be studied, remembered and savored all at once. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Fiction    3. Literature: Classics    4. Literature of special Gay interest    5. Other prose: 19th century    6. Works by individual poets: 19th century   

Reviews (4)

Absolutely mind-blowing
I had no idea that a simple page of unpunctuated emotion could grind at your heart and make you cry the way this does, easily.It is raw, angry, despairing and loving all at once, you feel as if the poems are Monette's one strand of hope, a lifeline desperately connecting him to existence in the months after Roger's death.These literally take your breath away, they are a rollercoaster of heartbreak and desperation, grabbing some vital organ inside of you and not letting go until the poem's been read.I would give these six, seven, twenty three stars if I could, because this is the purpose of literature, to preserve human emotion and experience.These poems do that exquisitely.

Amazing, unbelievable, intense like only truth can be
This is a book that will make you believe. breathless poems
It is worth buying the book simply for the first poem, "Here".Each of the pieces moves at a fever pitch, leaving the reader unable to pause even for breath, until the poem ends and leaves you holding the book, wanting more, but needing a break, unable to turn the page.They wear you out reading them, but in the best way possible.Monette documents the death of his partner, and the knowledge of his own advancing illness, and he does so in a way that takes you with him : you feel the urgency, pain, sadness, beauty, love, and preciousness of life right along with the poet.Love Alone isn't poems that just tell you things.It puts them in your hands. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. AIDS (Disease)    2. American - General    3. Fiction - General    4. Gay    5. Gay men    6. Patients    7. Poetry    8. Modern fiction    9. Poetry / General