Nothin' Ugly Fly.nothin' ugly fly by Marvin K. White, RedBone Noun 1. redbone - a speedy red or red-and-tan American hound hound, hound dog - any of several breeds of dog used for hunting typically having large drooping ears Press September 2004, $14, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-965-66595-X In his second work, White reassembles his youth in an effort to find understanding of himself and of his family. The book hinges on poems like "rememory," which takes place "somewhere / in the stuffed pocket /of my mind's youth," where intimate notions of boyhood attraction are accepted and honored. In "all trips round" and "curse" perhaps two of the strongest poems in the text, White witnesses his family's shame and disappointment at his being gay in order to accept this inevitability of himself. He constructs imagery of signs, curses and conjures to reconnect with and then to banish this fear of self and familial acceptance, and then to return it to himself as well wishes and blessings. The title poem employs subtle words packed with dynamite to dispel the walls of myth that this sort of shame has built: "nothin' that fly ugly / just small / swallowed up by sky and god / i bird." Here, White places himself as an individual against the masses of naysayers, a blade of grass pushing against concrete. But it is this smallness of childhood and misunderstandings that is also juxtaposed jux·ta·pose tr.v. jux·ta·posed, jux·ta·pos·ing, jux·ta·pos·es To place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast. against poems of his adulthood and embracing his identity and the heating eroticism Eroticism Aphrodite novel of Alexandrian manners by Pierre Louys. [Fr. Lit.: Benét, 783] Ars Amatoria Ovid’s treatise on lovemaking. [Rom. Lit. of that embrace. This is no easy endeavor; poems like 'shy' testify to these growing pains grow·ing pains pl.n. Pains in the limbs and joints of children or adolescents, frequently occurring at night and often attributed to rapid growth but arising from various unrelated causes. with blaring lines like: "i ball up inside myself unwrap loudly come undone ill-timed peppermint in church" This awkward coming out is precisely exhibited with skilled enjambment en·jamb·ment or en·jambe·ment n. The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause. [French enjambement, from Old French enjamber, and a gentle prod at social self-awareness. White continues his text with other poems that pulse with 'the life'; poems like "anthem" and "the children" change the lonely "I" into a new, stronger chosen family of "we" |
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