Gay Poetry «

December 16, 2011

A Kick-Ass Moment? Nah. A Kick-Ass Year.

When I was a teenager, I kept a journal, and at the end of each year, I’d designate one event from the previous twelve months as “Most Kick-Ass Moment of the Year.” I no longer keep a journal, but each December, I silently designate a new “Kick-Ass Moment.” Last year it was easy. What can compare to launching your first book in New York City? This year, though? It ain’t so cut and dry. I look back on 2011 with my head spinning.

We launched Assaracus through Sibling Rivalry Press and schools from the Ivy League to community colleges subscribed, not to mention readers from around the world. (England! Hong Kong! Italy! Australia!)
My Life as Adam was included on the American Library Association’s Over the Rainbow list of noteworthy LGBT titles, one of only five collections of poetry named.
I had a poem published in one of my “dream” pubs, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide.
I was named one of eight young Arkansans “for the future” by the Arkansas Times.
I closed the Arkansas Literary Festival’s Pub or Perish and read poems from the forthcoming Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father in public for the first time. (Next December, folks. That’s when my second full-length book will be released, and this one is something special to me. Just last week I scored the perfect artwork for the front cover.)
I stood in the back of a beautiful room at this year’s Rainbow Book Fair and watched Raymond Luczak absolutely hold a crowd in the palm of his hand as he read from Road Work Ahead.
Theresa Senato Edwards broke SRP’s glass ceiling and became our first female author.
We reissued one of my favorite books from the previous year, Steven Reigns’ Inheritance, under the SRP label.
I chased Jessie Carty, caught her, wrestled her to the ground and made her sign a contract to bring Fat Girl to SRP.
One of my best friends, Loria Taylor, became contractually obligated to sing my praises.
Kevin Simmonds took Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality (the first anthology of its kind) around the world, holding readings in New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, South Carolina, Minneapolis, Washington DC, and London.
Gavin Dillard and Eric Norris gave me enough behind-the-scenes material from Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale of Two Poets to write my own tell-all memoir, then they made Richard Labonte’s Favorite Books of 2011 list.
Saeed Jones’ When the Only Light Is Fire sold like, well, it was on fire, occupying Amazon’s #1 spot in Gay Poetry for weeks.
I delivered half of the keynote address at the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival and drove away from Georgia with three new authors in the works… Megan Volpert, Collin Kelley, and Theresa Davis… a trio of talent that can take over the world. Megan knocked it out of the park with Sonics in Warholia, and Collin and Theresa will do the same in 2013.
Our list of eBooks grew. I tested the waters of prose with an eBook short story (only 99 cents!) and we’ll end the year ready to jump into fiction with both feet thanks to Leigh Binder’s How to Kill Harry and Donnelle McGee’s Shine.
Another poet I’d long courted, Stephen S. Mills, signed a contract to debut his first collection with SRP.
Philip F. Clark was officially named Art Editor for SRP. Brent Calderwood became the Associate Editor of Assaracus. Brian Gryphon was named Associate Editor of Marketing. It’s not a one-man show anymore!
Matthew Hittinger, Jane Cassady, Virginia Bell, and Brad Richard (pronounced Reessssh-ARD, FYI) were selected out of hundreds of poets who submitted manuscripts during our open-submission period. You’ll see their work come to fruition in 2012.
Columbia University used Ocean Vuong’s Burnings as course material, Gallaudet University is slated to use Road Work Ahead as course material, and just today, a friend and fellow writer emailed to let me know that My Life as Adam will be used as course material in an upcoming Queer Lit class at the Rhode Island School of Design.

It’s pretty clear to me, looking back, that I have no ability to separate myself from SRP at this point. SRP’s best days are my best days. When an SRP author is happy… man, I’m happy. I’m living it and breathing it, folks. This is the life I wanted. So yeah. Kick-ass moment? I don’t think so. Kick-ass year. The moral of the story: Don’t wait for anyone to hand you anything. Figure out what you want, and then just fucking go for it. It’s RIGHT there. It’s waiting on YOU.

10 comments

November 22, 2011

How Facebook Ruins Legends

Audio Version: Click to hear “How Facebook Ruins Legends”

Eric sends me a friend request
after his parole. He starts calling.
Sixteen. Seventeen times in a row.
When I do not answer, he leaves me
messages saying I have to talk to you;
I have to see you. There is the madness
in his voice that comes from needing
something forbidden. In the middle
of the night, he sends a text message:
Come sneak me out. He means
from the halfway house. He is addict;
I am crystal methamphetamine.

His brother, Michael, cannot spell.
His status updates are simple. They reek
of a straight man, cold beer, deer meat.
The smell of forced bachelorhood.
Where is the confident boy
with the balls to place his hand
on my school-bus riding thigh?
I know what you are, he said then.
Now he announces to the world:
99% DNA match. Guess I’m a daddy.

Joshua does not confirm me,
does not confirm he was my first.
He does not confirm how he
would touch me underneath
the blanket, how he wrote love
letters from Joplin, Missouri.
Yesterday a tornado ate the heart
of the town. Now Joplin
is gone. So is he.

Matt is military. We play
a game of chicken. Neither of us
click Add as Friend. He is Romeo
in army fatigues. I am Juliet
in starched pink shirt. Both believed
the other dead. The past is buried
and grass has grown over its grave.
You wouldn’t know the bones
of something spectacular
rest in peace beneath the dirt
where soldiers march to war.

8 comments

June 27, 2011

Photos from the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival

Over three days, Chris and I just fell in LOVE with Atlanta, its people, its poets, its food (Iberian Pig, y’all!). I FINALLY got to meet Jessie Carty (and ambush her by pulling her up on stage to read from Fat Girl). I also had the pleasure of delivering one-half of the keynote address (the other half was delivered by my new soulmate, Theresa Davis). To watch my keynote in its entirety, check out this post at the SRP blog. In the meantime, here’s a little photographic taste of AQLF, with captions (and MORE photos) to come.

4 comments

May 16, 2011

Moving Target 001 – Borland Vlogs Luczak and Edwards

Without further adieu, here’s the first installment of what I’m calling MOVING TARGET! My new vlog from the side of the road.

This vlog features:

The Mop-Haired Boy by Raymond Luczak

Summer is a mop-haired toothy-grinned boy
who’s never had to work a single day in his life.
Lanky yet never gawky, he ambles by
all the girls with petals in their hair
oozing gasps of nectar in his wake.

Full of weed-induced giggles, he lazes about
and says, “Man, what’s happening,” a lot.
Nights of fireflies puncture the haze of his vision.
He inhales the poppy scents of romance,
but it’s not enough. So heroin it is.

He doesn’t understand why nobody wants him now.
He’s forgotten how one can stink after not bathing so long.
Forced to enter a methadone clinic, he cuts his hair.
Seeing his own pock-marked face in the mirror
for the first time is a terrible autumn.

The Touch of the Notch by Theresa Senato Edwards

She’d done absurd things as a child:
the counting of steps up stairways,
the repeating grip of the doorknob in her palm,
always going back to the knob,
going back to the corner of the door,
it had a notch in one of its grooves,
a smooth wooden pool of calm.

She’d rub a circle to the right,
outline the groove,
pray for resolve.

~
When she and her three year old
moved into their first apartment,
she decorated.
Inside the perfectly smooth door,
she gave her son a room
and looked for a hollow
space she could call home.
Ran her fingers down the wood
of every door,
closed eyes searching for indentation:
that invisible worry dump
to help with the nights
of her son’s temper tantrums,
the struggle to sleep by herself
before sleep became breaths of insomnia.

No notch in any door.
But she found a green dent
in beige primer on the hallway step.
In odd stillness, her fingers traced
the small spot
smooth like family,
quiet like a gift of understanding.

CHECK OUT ASSARACUS ISSUE 01 (featuring Raymond, not to mention his full-length collection, ROAD WORK AHEAD) AND VOICES THROUGH SKIN (by Theresa) – BOTH FROM SIBLING RIVALRY PRESS!

3 comments

April 11, 2011

Video of Pub or Perish Reading

Thanks to my buddy, Reggie Koch, who brought his mad filming skills to the front row, my Arkansas Literary Festival Pub or Perish reading was captured on video. I’ll be honest. I haven’t watched the entire thing yet, because it’s sort of strange to watch oneself on stage. Shout out to Chris, Loria, Wayne, LaMar, Alana, Gene, Diane, Gayathiri, and Rozanne for coming out and cheerleading. And thanks to the folks who kept the gin and tonics flowing.

The highlight of the night for me was seeing Malek Asfeer’s debut reading on American soil. This kid is 19 and seeking asylum from Saudi Arabia. Long story short: he died when he was 12. Came back to life with his spirituality drained; he’d seen no God. When he spoke of his experience, he became the victim of terrible brutality. Saturday night, he read his poems in Arabic; the fantastic David Koon read them in English. Remember his name, folks. Malek is something special.

Here’s my reading: