Deal by Randall Mann

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I probably don’t need to begin by reminding you about what a fan of Randall’s work I am, but this means this is the first “New and Selected Poems” collection in which I had already read all the “Selected Poems” in their respective original collections. So while I read the new poems intently I did somewhat flick through the rest, letting familiar lines catch my attention.

But at 45 (ish) pages the new poems are a decent sized collection in their own right. And they have that exciting mix of joy and melancholy that is such a rich feature of Randall’s work.

Most had the form Randall has increasingly favoured over the years of very short lines, two or three words, I think this gives the words an immediacy.

There the mixing of memory, the particular memories of growing up gay, and present experience – and Randall is of a generation in which the legacy of AIDS is never far below the surface. But a strong message that live is there to be lived through it all.

I tagged the poem Friday, which begins

Is this a story

or a problem,

a colleague said.

…

…

I switch off

my face,

and chat,

...

Just Like Everyone Else by Sarah Hagger-Holt

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This is Sarah’s third fiction book and like the others it is pitched perfectly in telling the experience of young people. Sarah creates these family settings that feel authentic in their ordinariness, and she gives voice to young people whose awkwardness and potential for deep embarrassment also feels very real.

Aidan’s desire is essentially to be invisible, to fit in, and his growing awareness of his sexuality intensifies that – fear of the reaction being gay will bring. Fear that makes him hostile to Justin & Atif, that somehow being around a gay couple will make people see him, make people realise that he is gay too.

That he is in a family that love and embrace him when they do find out makes this a really affirming read, and I wish there had been more stories (any stories) like this available to me when I was a teenager. Pictures of a gay life that turns out to be ok, and turns out to be pretty ordinary too.

I know Sarah from YLGC, and I was reflecting seeing her and many other YLCGers at Greenbelt that we are no-longer Young LGBT+ Christians but rather Middle-Aged LGBT+ Christians that there is something beautiful in that, a generation that are putting the “Peter Pan Syndrome” in its place, claiming for ourselves and for the likes of Aidan that come after us so many of the things that were denied our forebears, denied our younger selves. There are many fights still to be had, especially by and for our Trans siblings – but for most queer kids today the fear about what people will think is largely unfounded.

I hope that Sarah’s books and those like it put the stories of queer kids not only into the hands of queer kids, but also into the hands of non-queer kids – they are good stories told well.