On This Stretch of Queerland by Dale Booton
A rich pamphlet, and it brought me joy that 2 of the poems had previously been published in &Change – there is clearly a natural overlap between Fourteen Poems and &Change.
One of the poems (which you can hear Dale read on the Fourteen Poems Instagram)
Dining Out
you introduce me to your favourite Chinese food
double fired chicken doused in chillies
and my throat flares at the sight of them lips already crying out
for water you grin watch my face chopsticks
poised like the front legs of a praying mantis
I strike snatch up a fair amount toss it into the trembling
abyss while chewing I focus on your face
coke-glass eyes night-framed glasses nosey tongue
try to distract myself from the napalm spice
dare not look towards the oasis of water
a fork away what do you think my voice
tries to battle its way through the flames wants to tell you
that there is no taste like the taste of your names
in my mouth but instead falters at it’s nice but a bit hot for me
Pick Up Your Feelings by Christopher Lloyd
I am pleased to report there is a &change cross over in this pamphlet too, Christopher’s poems mostly focus on a candid view of contemporary “dating” - especially the sequence alt
One of the poems
catfish makes me cry
every time
like sending nudes
& being left
on read
your heart a mushroom
think with salt
massages in brine
stored up
for when you vanish
again
your mother is calling me
red flags
billow in your selfie
If I Were Erol by Kann K/Yas Necati
These are such smart poems – I really loved them – I tagged the following:
Poems to my names I
Handsome
I am not an answer
Sacimi kesebilir misin? ( Can you cut my hair?)
Sometimes I am more boy than brave
which concludes
…
i have smiled like hope before.
i have loved like hope before.
i will smile like hope again.
i will love like hope again.
Poems to my names III
Faith
Symmetric of Bone by Troy Cabida
The jewellery of Elsa Peretti is the inspiration for these poems, and the results are jewel like, precise and on occasion cutting…
I put tags in:
Pearls in a Thumbprint Bowl
Victoria Embankment Park, 2023
On Normativity, which concludes “… | Have my ashes forged into a diamond | set on a chain or a gold band, | a setting so clean | I’ll spend this next chapter of my life | flicking light at the still-living.”
Symmetric
Citrine
Bone
Elsa Peretti II, New York 1975
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