Assaracus Issue 10: A Journal of Gay Poetry by Bryan Borland

Assaracus Issue 10: A Journal of Gay Poetry Reviews

• 
  Grady

  Once again, the finest in new poetry
  
  By now most people are aware of the first class poetry journal ASSARACUS published by Sibling Rivalry Press. Bryan Borland is the ingenious editor of this journal and he is assisted by the Associate Editor of SRP Seth Pennington and the designer who produced the fine color photograph for the cover, Adam W. Clifton. The collections of poetry are contributed and selected from gay poets from around the world - both established and emerging - and the quality is as usual first rate.
  
  The poets whose works are included in this issue are Jonathan Alexander, Jeffery Berg, John Bonanni, Travis Crockett, Ron Drummond, Rob Jacques, Miodrag Kojadinovic, Kelly McQuain, Allen Salerno, Lawrence Schimel, Josh Stenberg, and Denver Torres. And while it is not possible to excerpt works from each of them, the following examples hint at the quality of work included.
  
  AMERICAN BOY by Jeffery Berg
  I could have been an American girl
  raised on promises. At seven,
  desperate for red flats, Reeboks,
  with red laces instead.
  Played Petty on the piano
  for the July 4th family picnic.
  Grill smoke in the air, I spun out
  onto the lawn, yearning for my red laces
  to be pigtail ribbons. Some years later,
  Petty's song in `Silence of the Lambs',
  Brooke Smith singing along in the dark
  patting the steering wheel,
  on her way to entrapment
  at the bottom of a concrete pit
  in the basement of Buffalo Bill -
  that deep-voiced, scarred-face
  I never wanted to end up like,
  tucking it in, prancing in the mirror
  with a boa. That same summer,
  my name shared with Dahmer,
  I read about him in `Time'
  in the dentist office. After all
  it was a great, big world
  with many people to run from.
  Freezer-packed genitals. The boy
  Who almost got away.
  
  REDISTRIBUTION by Lawrence Schimel
  Ahead of me, a Latino couple brings their groceries home,
  their roles clearly defined: she wears heels and a short skirt,
  he carries all their bags, macho beast of burden.
  
  Suddenly, she tries to take one of the bags away form him.
  He resists, but in the end she gets her way.
  And as they wander home their groceries now evenly distributed,
  I see that her action wasn't a feminist challenge to the status quo;
  she simply want to hold his hand.
  
  TORSO OF APOLLO RECAST (after Rilke) by Ron Drummond
  Weird chanting won't bring back his missing head,
  or his ripe Adam's apple, either, Using
  a torso as a candelabra is amusing,
  us that's your scene; or try your luck in bed,
  
  he's hard and solid. Just don't count on his pair
  of legs ever returning, and likewise ten
  slender fingers for counting on except when
  wearing mittens; but it's okay to stare.
  
  And understand that to insult and curse
  under your breath what's gone could make it worse
  for a fine and otherwise robust fella;
  
  but if you break up with the boy, be gentle;
  this is not dress-up time with Cinderella.
  One of you is stone. The other is mental.
  
  But of course the best way to stay abreast of what is important and interesting in poetry, especially poetry from gay poets, is to subscribe to the journal! It is always top drawer.
  
  Grady Harp
• 
  Čitalac

  Interesting review by Robert Torres on
  http://www.therainbowhub.com/book-rev...