Intelligent, intimate analyses of a gay life in rural America.
In a series of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award–winning writer and academic Mann (English/Virginia Tech; co-editor: LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry From Appalachia, 2019, etc.) explores the experience of being a gay man who appreciates conservative Appalachia.
“I own no Cher or Streisand CDs,” Mann proclaims early on, making it clear to readers who may be unfamiliar with his work that he doesn’t fit gay stereotypes. He doesn’t live in a large city, and he’s content with living with his “husbear” in the mountains of the Virginias, listening to Joni Mitchell, and reflecting on writers such as Wordsworth and Keats. Across 22 essays, Mann discusses religion, politics, and sex while addressing the seeming disconnect between his sexuality and the down-home world that he loves. Religion remains the thorniest aspect of Appalachian life for Mann, but in the essay “Surly Bear in the Bible Belt,” he smartly traces his sexual desires for stereotypically masculine men and bondage back to the rigid gender roles of fundamentalist Christianity. Politics, including the election of Donald Trump, are woven throughout these pieces, but they come to the forefront in “Confederate” and “Watch Out! That Queer’s Got a Gun,” in which Mann offers nuanced and surprising stances on hot-button issues. However, the author always wisely brings his arguments back to the personal, concentrating on emotions that Civil War pictures stir within him or how a gun can assuage his anxiety over potential homophobic attacks. His carnal desire for “burly men” comes up often, and it may be the one point that feels repetitive in this collection; however, he sharply analyzes it in the travelogues “Whoremonger” and “A Leather Bear in the Big Easy,” which call to mind the frank, revealing essays of Edmund White. Mann offers some of his best insights in shorter, more poetic pieces, such as “David” or “Country Boy,” in which he concisely relates that two aspects of his identity are intrinsically linked: “I’m country because of the men I’ve yearned for and the men I’ve loved.”
Intelligent, intimate analyses of a gay life in rural America.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59021-701-6
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
That Rewak (The Orphan Bear, 2014, etc.) is a professor, a university chancellor, and a monk only makes the fact that he is also an accomplished poet more impressive.
It is difficult to talk about Jesuit poetry without invoking Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was a monk, a spiritual seeker, and a poet responsible for some of the most moving, challenging English verse of the last two centuries. So it’s entirely fitting that Rewak—himself a Jesuit—calls out to his forebear in his new collection. “A New Task” is written in Hopkins’ memory, and in it, Rewak asks the poet, “Do you see, finally, after the dimness / that shadowed your black-robed walks / down lanes of half-opened eyes, / all the sentences left to be completed? / Is your pen busy with new, full-blown / wonders—stanzas that startle the saints?” Rewak’s own verse may not startle any saints, but it’s sure to please almost anyone else. But if Hopkins’ language is an ancient, gnarled oak, Rewak’s is a young birch, and his lines are smooth, white, and unbroken. Often flowing and conversational, his works are conceptually and emotionally ambitious but eminently readable. Take the humble, pristine “Rose”: “This little rose / is the best thing / I ever grew for you / on this small planet / you can take the dinosaurs / and mushrooms, the great / Himalayas, full of grandeur / (as an indication of My size) / but this thing I hold....” Here, the poet’s direct address and his coyly simple language remind us of the beauty of small things—even things so frequently praised as that red flower. Like Hopkins before him, Rewak addresses God less often than the beautiful, sublime world. But when he does turn his attention to religious matters, it’s with wit and insight. Here is “Verdict,” which is presumably about the trial of God: “They’ve put You on trial / I’m told: / it was whispered to me / proceedings are held tight / in a shuttered room… / but I notice the sun / still shines / because at heart You’re generous / and inclined to overlook petulance.” Would that all poets could write with such tact and humor.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5390-5255-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.
Sharma (America Tattwamasi, 2016) explores American freedom in this collection of poetry.
In his previous book, the poet observed America through the lens of the Hindu Upanishads, with an emphasis on religion, politics, and universal spirituality. This second collection of more than 200 poems is “the continuation of the same vision, message, and mission,” he reveals early on. As a whole, it showcases an unswerving belief in American ideals; indeed, Sharma describes America, in his introduction, as representing “the supreme philosophy of freedom and liberty.” However, he also states that his lengthy, 52-page title poem is a lyrical attempt at “reinvigorating this great country” in the face of what he perceives as current “weakness and complacency.” Still, the poem portrays the nation as a wellspring of benevolent energy. Speaking directly to America itself, the narrator offers absurd exaggeration: “You are the one on whom is pinned the advancement of human / civilization, with all its sacredness intact.” He then turns a critical gaze toward people in politics, asking, “Why have our politicians relegated themselves to third world / demagogues? / Why are they twisting our sacred documents to suit their knavish / dispositions?” The result is a fervent cri de coeur that asks the amorphous American spirit to “arise and illumine the eyes of humanity,” as “It is time to bludgeon the dark that is trying to decapitate truth and / veracity.” Some readers may interpret these lines as revolutionary, aggressively nationalistic, or even colonialist in tenor, with their inference that everything that isn’t America is in darkness, waiting to be illuminated or crushed. In a later poem, the narrator declares, “The uncompromising advocate / Of racial harmony and tolerance, / O America, / I salute thee!” Sharma’s writing echoes the nigh-biblical, overspilling grandiosity of Walt Whitman’s literary style. However, there’s also a hint of zealotry here, and some readers, including those engaged in campaigning for racial equality in the United States, will likely balk at this collection’s assumptions of harmony and tolerance.
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.Pub Date: July 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-5150-7
Page Count: 358
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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