Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience by Raymond Luczak

Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience Reviews

• 
  Telly

  What does it mean to be a Midwesterner? This is the question Raymond Luczak poses in the foreword. If the collection of poetry included within its 126 pages tell us anything, Among the Leaves indicates the Midwest to be a place where conformity and niceties reign, but where sentiments of feeling trapped, suppressed, and unwelcome are just as prevalent. It is safe and austere, where strong work ethic and the normalcy and simplicity of every day life is celebrated.
  
  When I read and reread these poems, it was the theme of conformity that seemed to stay front and center. Of course, you cannot talk about conformity without thinking about those who resist conforming, those despite feeling trapped or suppressed refuse to be stifled. Certainly, there are foreboding poems that warn us of the dangers of not confirming, such as Scott Wiggerman's "Hate Crime." There are others, though, that seeks out places of sanctuary in the Midwest. In Ahisma Timoteo Bodhrán's "Repatriation," two Native Americans find such a place:
  
  Your're gonna say something to two queer Native boyz in a
  Native museum, really?"
  
  It is here in this museum, Bodhrán writes earlier, that it is...
  
  Interesting to think we are protected. Our art and
  bodies, for once, protected. People need to go through
  security to get to us.
  
  While Bodhrán finds his safe place, there are other who do not. Others for whom life in the Midwest seems hopeless. In Malcolm Stuhlmiller's "Piano Teacher," a piano teacher's "great amber ashtray / already overflowing" and "stinking the whole world / with stale butts" is strangulation. Stuhlmiller vividly captures how the "whole world" consists of the confines of two hopeless lives that are bound to exchange places. The student's future, it seems, is the teacher's present. In "Married," Stuhlmiller refers to being "mummified alive on the North Dakota prairie," a vivid image for the closeted or down low life that an older man, a mortician nonetheless, recommends to a nineteen year old man contemplating the freedom to love openly in the Midwest. In his final poem, Stuhlmiller rocks against conventionality, declaring that he is permitted to hate work, allowed to despite power tools, and concede to being passive-aggressive. Despite these acknowledgments, "Tequila" ends with the observation that he is nonetheless "soberly tethered" to the sour, / dry, scratchy circumstances" of the Midwest.
  
  Where Stuhlmiller leaves off, Wiggerman picks up. Stuhlmiller's permission to "despite power tools" blends well with Wiggerman's "Plays Like a Girl," which hints at the pressure and inability to live up to gender roles and masculinity as defined by the Midwest. It is interesting to contrast Wiggerman's self-deprecating lines "I still flounce like a seal in an empty field, / my arms flapping in the air, / but I'll never catch if you don't let go" with those of George Klawitter's "Toward Valhalla," in which the narrator uses Greek and Roman mythology to recast his own history of clarinet player to that of celebratory high school football athlete. John Medeiros' "Camaraderie at the Super Bowl, 2005" is another football poem that fetes nonconformity. Here, the narrator confesses to never being a Patriots fan, though he's from New England, until he stands next to a man at a Midwestern urinal, "His head bowed in a combination / of shame and curiosity / as one eye moves its way / from his to my penis." The disdain for this man's oppressed curiosity, or perhaps his ability to conform, allows the narrator to, for the first time in his life, boast, "proud & erect, satisfied" to finally "be on the winning team." I found myself wondering if the Midwest is so oppressive, and you come from a place like New England, wouldn't you find it rather hard to root for the "home" team? At some point, place becomes personified and takes on a life of its own. In Madeiros' poem, there is still an element of feeling trapped, bound to the land.
  
  I think James Cihlar's "The Eighth Wonder of the World" best sums up that sentiment of being trapped or stuck. In pleading to be taken to Manhattan, Cihlar declares, "One island is the same as another." The Midwest, in fact, seems very much like an island, at once both welcoming and uninviting. One of my favorite poets in the collection is James Schwartz, whose poems describe his decision to leave the, arguably, seclusive Amish order for the lonely nightlife of the Midwest. In "Bad Behavior," he writes about exchanging the Amish island "for sin and gin and metro charm," describing himself as a "A lonely warrior on my own. / Clubs close, no going home." Jack Fritscher and Christopher Hennessy use the oft described Midwestern winters, in this case a blizzard and an ice storm, respectively, to capture what it means to be isolated in "Transistor Clock Radio (The Snows of 1969)" and "Dreaming Through the Fifth Day Without Power The Great Ice Storm of 1976, Mid-Michigan."
  
  For all the poems that speak of conformity, feeling trapped, being oppressed, suppression of dreams and desires, there are also those that celebrate the Midwest, be it family, the natural environment, or the quirks of the Midwest, even if through the tricky slipknot of memory. In fact, I felt that the end of "Among the Leaves" take on a more hopeful tone.
  
  There's a duality in Hennessy's "Sleeping Bear Dunes" that, despite it's haunting tone, is one of the best tributes to the scenic Great Lakes that I have read. Hennessy's sensually erotic "Strawberries" is also another uplifting piece.
  
  In Raymond Luczak's "Bile," I found a man working through memories of his tough childhood and finally deciding to fight back, even without a gallbladder to create the bile necessary to "to master the recipe of rage." Whether or not there will be a fight is uncertain, but the way "Bile" stacks up against other poems that shatter the shallowness of what it means to be Midwestern nice, such as Brent Goodman's "How'd You Like It If I Called You A Jew?" and "Most of the Time," Walter Beck's "Hoosier Swinging Both Way Blues," or Whittier Strong's "Minnesota/Indiana," certainly is rewarding -- and the sucker punch to the Midwest for which I yearned while turning pages. "The Birch Tree," "Lakewood Cemetery," and "On the Corner of Oak and Spruce" share a theme of reflective longing for things, people, and places, each reading like an oblique homage.
  
  My favorite poem, though, is the last one: "What to Pray For." In his closing poem, Michael Kiesow Moore presents us with a hopeful acknowledgment that, though difficult, we can get "it" right, it being ourselves and the places that are personified based on our behaviors and attitudes. It's the final note on the Midwest in "Among the Leaves" and a hopeful one at that.
  
  So, what does it mean to be a Midwestern, especially if you do not fit in or cannot conform with the larger culture or population? Perhaps being Midwestern just means bearing it. Bearing the harsh winters, not begrudging the false niceties, continuing to fight against conformity, and seeking out your own sanctuaries among oppression, be they patches of strawberries, strong willed aunts, continuing to dream, or museums. If the strong will to survive regardless of the people, culture, places, and seasons is what it means to be a Midwesterner, then the esprit de corps of "Among the Leaves" is summed up best by Walter Beck's closing stanzas in "Hoosier Swinging Both Ways Blues:"
  
  I don't let it get me down,
  I don't let it break me;
  As long as I have a song to sing,
  I'm doing alright.
  
  Congratulations to Raymond Luczak and his team of poets in sharing the songs of survival they sing "Among the Leaves."
• 
  Will

  I enjoyed Luczak's collection of thoughtful and deeply personal poetry from queer Midwestern men. I found that it did not fully compare to the depth of the poetry collected in it's companion piece "When We Become Weavers..." which featured a more diverse collection of authors in terms of gender, race, and socioeconomic class. I enjoy both of these collections because they walk such a line of refined and gorgeous poems and some a little rougher around the edges. There were a couple of poems that had a deep impact on me but I also thought to myself that I was reading the same poem every 5 pages or so. Excited to learn more about some of these authors. This volume is a great diving point to get into more local poetry!