Playtime

by Andrew McMillan

In these intimate, sometimes painfully frank poems, Andrew McMillan takes us back to childhood and early adolescence to explore the different ways we grow into our sexual selves and our adult identities. Examining our teenage rites of those dilemmas and traumas that shape us - eating disorders, circumcision, masturbation, loss of virginity - the poet examines how we use bodies, both our own and other people’s, to chart our progress towards selfhood. McMillan’s award-winning debut collection, physical , was praised for a poetry that was tight and powerful, raw and tender, and playtime expands that narrative frame and widens the gaze. Alongside poems in praise of the naivety of youth, there are those which explore the troubling intersections of violence, masculinity, class and sexuality, always taking the reader with them towards a better understanding of our own physicality. ‘isn’t this what human kind was made fo r ’, McMillan asks in one poem, ‘telling stories learning where the skin/is most in need of touch’ . These humane and vital poems are confessions, both in the spiritual and personal sense; they tell us stories that some of us, perhaps, have never found the courage to read before.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Anthologies, Collections, Nonfiction

80 pages, Paperback

Published August 2, 2018

About the author

Andrew McMillan was born in 1988. He now lectures in Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University. He studied English Literature w/ Creative Writing at Lancaster University, and then an MA in modernism from University College London.

His first full-length collection, ‘physical’, will be published by Jonathan Cape in July 2015. This follows three highly successful pamphlets, the first of which, every salt advance, was published in 2009 by Red Squirrel Press. A second pamphlet, ’ the moon is a supporting player’, was published by Red Squirrel Press in October 2011 and a selection of his poet can be found in the seminal new anthology The Salt Book of Younger Poets as well as in Best British Poetry 2013. A new pamphlet length poem, ‘protest of the physical’, was published by Red Squirrel Press in late 2013.

As well as his permanent position at Liverpool John Moores University, Andrew has taught poetry for Sheffield University, Edge Hill University and the Poetry School.

Andrew is currently one of the writers working for national charity First Story, and has been Poet-in-Residence for Off the Page , the LGBT community of Bournemouth, Sea View Day Centre in Poole, Basingstoke Bourough Council and the Regional Youth Theatre Festival; writer-in-residence for the Watershed Landscape Project, Growing Places arts and sustainability project in Newcastle and Apprentice Poet-in-Residence for the Ilkley Literature Festival In 2010 he was commissioned by IMove, the cultural olympiad body for Yorkshire, to produce a new sequence of work which was featured on Radio 4’s Today Programme. He regularly runs workshops for amateur poetry groups and in various community,school and higher education settings as well as for Sheffield Theatres and various literary feativals. 2012 saw him named a ‘new voice’ by both Latitude Festival and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

He was founding editor of Cake Magazine alongside Martha Sprackland: http://www.cake-poetry.co.uk/

In 2014 Andrew won a substantial Northern Writers Award from New Writing North.

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baldness, circumcision, anorexia, cruelty at school, sexual awakening, violence (often sport related in some way), anxiety of STDs after a blood test.
In many ways this bundle is quite bleak
they are
so lonely for love they can’t be alone
they wander the grounds to find each other
they sit arguing the terms of how
their bodies will exist together
how they will survive the knowing of each other
- Watching students

Growing up and changing and not being what one expected for oneself (or doing things one’s mother wouldn’t have wanted for you). Anorexia features in the poem What 1.6% of young men know.
Overall a less impactful bundle for me than physical but with some keen observations on the pain of growing up:

or the time a new young supply teacher
seemed to look at me with pity as though
my body was someone else’s misbehaving child
- Things said in the changing room

try articulating why it was you
were chosen as a symbol that men
equate power with the suffering
of others
- Boxing Booth

there are the men who like being spat on
long slow drool from someone knelt above them
like honey pouring itself over
the edge of a spoon into a warm bowl

I think asking someone to degrade you
is about wanting to know the body
is a solid presence in the room
it has stumbled into

of wanting so much to step out
of his own mind he threw his body
into crowds pain being able to make us
forget our thoughts momentarily
- Spit

in this life
I have chosen to love only one man
and I am still in search of evidence
to prove that this was not a wrong idea
- Train

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was ambivalent about 'physical', which had a kind of gay archness about it; 'playtime', on the other hand, is tender, lacerating, unflinching, tender, erotic, and achingly wistful in its exploration of the intersection between child, youth, and man. Exquisite.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published 2018 after his highly successful ‘Physical’(2015).

After play and exploration in childhood comes puberty. Scary and isolating for some, with the awakening of sexual awareness. Then the groping towards masculinity within the many guises of manhood.

From First Time Sexting:

too young or shy for the real thing
I used the internet to find
another boy my age both of us
old enough to know what we wanted
wasn’t ‘ordinary’ that no one
taught it us in schools but our bodies
seemed drawn towards this thing we couldn’t
articulate and so we described
it to each other nightly for hours
what we imagined it might be
what we knew our bodies could do alone
whether they could do the same with
someone else for months we texted that way

From Personal Trainer:

remember first the body must be bruised
so it can heal itself stronger tense your stomach
I am going to punch you as though you were
a weight bag I’ll hit your sleeping abdominals
force them awake I will punch you though I know
you’ve never been punched before smacked yes
on your wrist or your arse to reprimand you
as a child but never someone wanting
to hurt you I will punch you so your body
grows more resilient so it learns the centre
of its own gravity I will punch you
until you go slack and then I’ll send you home

From Returning:

...and crawling with you
back towards this most base of our needs to taste
something of the foul swamp of our origin
to bring our faces to the door through which
all disgust and pleasure is in hiding
from the abandonments the wet streets
the unrelenting ugliness of this world

[Andrew H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather than move on from his triumphant Physical , Playtime moves backwards into adolescence and the birth of sexual activity. Out of forty poems, nearly half are about sexual play. Of course, this fits one interpretation of playtime, and enlarges on the whimsical cover. The trades description act is not broken. At the same time, it reduces to the volume to a banal level: I am gay and this is what I do. Playtime goes where many gay poets have gone before, and the poems, though dextrously written, hardly stretch the imagination. Poems tread familiar territory: there is the partner that is HIV positive and causes a visit to a sexual health clinic; there is the dash to view internet porn as a way of returning energy to sex; there is the overworked resemblance between physical sport and sexual exertion. There are poems where unusual meetings, "Phonebox", offer uncertainty and something tantalising and new. And poems, such as "Anaphora Penises", where the writing is pretentiously dull:

when you've seen one you've seen them all I think

you're wrong each one is a fingerprint unique
each with its own way of being in the world ...

According to the blurb from Cape Poetry, Playtime tells us stories that "some of us ... have never found the courage to read before." And perhaps that is the problem for those of us who have had the courage to read poetry from the margins-- the shock tactics aren't shocking. The "vital ... confessions" are more a cause of embarrassment than "spiritual" revelation.

[Márcio · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems are about the waking up of the body and of the mind for a new time, from childhood to teenagehood to adulthood, the discoveries of secrets the body and the emotions hide and we are only able to find out later as the years go by. playtime is a very beautiful book that I appreciated much more than physical.

[Ada · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,4.

Quan vaig llegir Physical, fa tres anys, em vaig quedar meravellada amb la profunditat i la bellesa amb la que McMillan escrivia sobre el desig. A Playtime ho torna a aconseguir, però aquest cop, a més a més, ho fa anant molt enrere, mirant cap a la infantesa i reconstruint les experiències d'un cos que, a poc a poc, va prenent consciència de si mateix.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explores similar themes to McMillan's previous collection: physical intimacy, the unique beauty of the body, sexuality, puberty. It's an engaging book, written in frank, accessible free verse. The poems' raw honesty make the reader feel connected with them. The first half of the book concerns itself with puberty, with first times, such as first time masturbating, or first time having anal sex. Some poems, such as "First Time Penetration" are very moving, comparing the act of penetration with water dripping through house. Others, such as "First Time With Friends", describing masturbating while in a tent, don't successfully evoke a place or emotion. The second section deals with relationships, with navigating conflict, fondness and boredom. "Making Up", about sex following a disagreement, was particularly moving to me, evoking the beauty and conflict of sustained physical intimacy. This collection is extremely readable, but at times fell flat to me: however, I admire McMillan's commitment to discussing gay intimacy, and will certainly read more of his work.

[Liván · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro rapidito de leer y con unos poemas muy interesantes. Los que más me gustaron son aquellos en los que existe una dualidad muy bien realizada, como el dibujo de una moneda con dos caras muy ingeniosamente unidas. Hay, sin embargo, muchos que no me llegaron en absoluto. ¡A lo mejor en otro momento!

[Gunner James · Rating 4 out of 5]

playtime by Andrew McMillan is raw, intimate, and undeniably real. These poems aren’t polished to perfection in that overly romanticized, sometimes cheesy way that queer poetry can fall into—they have grit. They feel lived-in, like memories that are too vivid to forget and too personal to ignore.

McMillan takes us back to boyhood and adolescence, exploring the messier, quieter moments of becoming—moments wrapped in sexuality, shame, desire, confusion, and discovery. From eating disorders and masturbation to circumcision and the loss of virginity, no subject feels off-limits here, yet everything is handled with care and intention. There's a certain bravery to this collection—these poems aren’t just written, they’re confessed.

Some pieces resonated more deeply with me than others, which is pretty typical with poetry collections, but I found something meaningful on every page. What stuck with me most was how unflinching yet tender McMillan’s voice is. He doesn’t shy away from the rough edges of masculinity or the weight of growing up queer in a world that doesn’t always know what to do with you.

This was a solid 4 stars for me. If you’re looking for queer poetry that’s honest, reflective, and not afraid to dig into the complicated stuff, playtime is well worth your time.

[Tuomas Aitonurmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pride-kuukausi on alkanut, ja tänä vuonna aloitan postaukset teemasta englanninkielisellä runokokoelmalla. Andrew McMillanin playtime tuli vastaani Guardianin arviosta. Kyseessä on esikoiskokoelmallaan physical useita palkintoja keränneen runoilijan toinen teos. Maskuliinisuuden ja ruumiillisuuden problematiikkaa aiemmin käsitellyt McMillan pureutuu playtimessa erityisesti siihen, millaista on varttua homomieheksi. Kokoelman ensimmäinen osio sisältää seksuaalisuuden kypsymisen kuvauksia: runo "first time" kertoo ensimmäisestä masturbointikerrasta, ja sitä seuraa muitakin ensimmäisiä kertoja. Jälkimmäisessä osiossa korostuvat aikuisiällä koetut tuntemukset, kohtaamiset seksin merkeissä, kehojen ja niiden ominaisuuksien pohdiskelu. McMillan sanoittaa monia asioita, jotka nähdään vaikeina ja kiusallisina. Enpä muista lukeneeni runoa, jossa mietiskellään lääketieteellisistä syistä tehtyä ympärileikkausta suorastaan filosofisesti, enkä runoa kaljuuntumisen vastaisesta taistelusta hiussiirteillä.

McMillan kirjoittaa runonsa rehellisesti ja suoraan – kuvakieltä hän käyttää säästellen, mutta varsin tehokkaasti silloin kun käyttää. Runojen asettelu on omanlaistaan: säkeenylityksiä on jatkuvasti, välimerkkejä ja isoja alkukirjaimia (I-sanaa lukuun ottamatta) ei käytetä. Lauseet vaihtuvat usein keskellä säettä niin, että se on merkitty vain ylimääräisin välilyönnein. Tämä tekee lukemisesta, varsinkin muulla kuin äidinkielellään, ajoittain haastavaa. Hahmottaakseen on luettava tiettyjä kohtia ja kokonaisia runojakin uudelleen tavallista enemmän. Runojen sisällön koin joissakin kohdin samastuttavaksi ollessani tekijän tavoin kolmikymppinen valkoinen länsimaalainen cis-homomies; tekstejä tulee lukeneeksi runomuotoisena autofiktiona, koska niiden maailma on niin realistinen ja koruttomasti kerrottu. Välillä olisin kaivannut enemmänkin kielellistä ilottelua, värikkyyttä ja ilmeitä toteavuuden oheen. Nyt kokoelman perusväri tuntui harmaalta kuin sateisen saarivaltion taivas. On siinäkin toki vivahteensa.

"there was only the moment I was trying / to give you the half open door of the laptop / your face pressed into the blank screen of the pillows / the evening sun setting the neighbourhood on fire" (s. 45)

(Tarkka arvio olisi 3,5/5)

[Paul Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

McMillan is a very skilled at his craft. His observations about sexuality, lust, masculinity, taboo and loss are often raw, honest, even brutal...there is no filter when invoking memory. The poems provoke a visceral and somewhat uncomfortable response because they are brave. They are contemporary, colourful, loaded with suspense, and graphic. This is a collection by an LGBTQ poet who is powerful right now - his work is real; it's happening all around us on the streets, in apartment blocks, in darkened corridors underground, and in the minds of millions who are trying to open the door revealing who and what they are. Playtime is important reading - it would surely help smash the boundaries of prejudice and preconception to reveal that, at the crux of it all, we're all the same.

[Eteocles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still prefer "physical" to this one, but McMillan has an amazing way of creating tunnels which take you straight ahead to the memories you thought were forgotten. Although it begins honouring the title, the collection soon drifts towards dark dark places that are not as long as you remain a teenager.

[Reuben Woolley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only a quick first time read through but it’s v similar territory to his first book. Def some poems that pull less weight than others but there’s a lot of really touching stuff and you kind of just want to keep reading to make sure he’s doing alright by the end of it

[Oliver Shrouder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magical stories about childhood, growth and sexuality - at this point it’s a foundational text for my poetry

[Ashish Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astoundingly physical!

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

hell yeah I was initially more sceptical than I was going into physical but it's interesting, whereas physical is a collection that I think is under threat of falling away in the second half, the poems of the second half of playtime seemed to me by far the strongest

anyway a delight to read andrew love him

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had eagerly been awaiting this second collection from Andrew McMillan and it is an absolute joy. There is an intimacy to these poems that is not unlike standing in someone's bedroom in the dark watching them sleeping (or masturbating or picking their nose). The poems are raw and real and visceral and tender. They have a sing-song lilting rhythm that gives a light touch to even the most serious of subject matters. McMillan's poetry is always brave - he is not afraid to shine the interrogation lamp on himself - exposing his weaknesses and human frailty. This is a collection I will come back to again and again.

[Rogue Male · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[Emily Cundall · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars - I couldn’t round it up to 5 though

[Russell Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Playtime is a collection of poems about men’s relationships with their own bodies and with the bodies of others. Sometimes it’s warm, sometimes it’s a bit cold and clammy. There’s a delicate, awkward ambivalence in the poems’ intimacies – toward the self and the unwashed socks of its incarnation. The collection is both restrained and explicit; about sexuality but not sexual, intimate but not erotic, homosexual with occasional homosex but, as often, alone in the universal leftovers of the body. The poems are necessarily both modest and immodest, modest because they are shared, immodest because they disclose the universality of being living flesh (for those who are bodied in any way, of whatever gender).

Sometimes you can smell the poems on the page, sometimes the feeling is voyeuristic and awkward and yet, at the same time, they make something sacred of a wank in a tent, reminding the reader that however they feel about these bodies and their parts – their own body and its parts – they are always subject to interpretations of the sacred and profane. All pride is swallowed in confessional and intimacy. Some poems are tentative and inescapably precise in their numbering: small dramas of saying and disclosure. Others, like Martyrdom, fall over themselves to shout but are held back by a delicate placement of words on the page that are then pressed in emphatically with a monumental monosyllabic weight and confident utterance that is somewhere between nostalgia and relief.

Another feeling full book from McMillan, who continues to etch out major work in queer poetry.

Russell Christie (author of The Queer Diary of Mordred Vienna)

[Joshua Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I really enjoyed Andrew McMillian’s poems in playtime. These poems are a cohesive blend of childlike curiosity and vulgarity. There is certain a refinement in his writing — it makes me think of the texture of fine sand. His poems are neither not too grating, nor too vague; confronting, but tender and pliable too.

I wish I had discovered poetry like his during my adolescence. A lot of the subject matter was very relatable as a young gay man coming to terms with his sexuality and his body.

——————

Jocasta


before I do    let me tell you what I’ve learned
you still have to wake up and carry on
I hadn’t really mourned my husband much
before this young one arrived inside the gates

his penetration went so deep inside
it felt like a returning    something coming
home    I think I worked it out before he did
but I had missed him all these years and missed

my husband    the brain is not logical
the body is not a desert    even as
we age    when he learnt the truth he looked repulsed
part of me had always that all men desired

to re-enter the chamber of their birth
that war was just a symptom of their rage
at not being able to    well my boy
licked the sides I’d pushed him through    found the nipples

I’d fed him with    and couldn’t live with that
he’d done    so now my loverson has empty
breadbaskets for eyes    and his father has
a shallow grave outside the city walls

and so I’ve learnt to trust only what I have
in this one small room    this square of light
this handful of neck    this noose    this table
this one short step

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s rare to stumble across a writer that you connect with on so many levels but I’m thankful to discover Andrew McMillan. This collection of poems could be a biography of my own life as a queer man, expressing clearly my experienced feelings and thoughts, often difficult to put into words.
It’s a lived experience aimed at those who will get it.
I welcome the way he talks about our masculinity without a sense of it being wrong, so refreshing!
He covers how we grow into being queer people, our deliciously grubby kinks, our sense of loss, our sense of place, our fantasies, all edged with a slither of violence and of fear from disease and death and delivered in beautiful snippets; each a perfect mouthful.
Keen to read more of his work, and will return to this for a dose of nostalgia when needed.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew McMillan’s new poetry collection ‘playtime’ charts his development both personally (through the content and themes of the poems), and professionally (through their craft and power and the ability of the collection to exceed his debut, ‘physical’). The poems here are uncomfortably intimate and raw and beautifully so, a tender and familiar look at growing up gay and outcast, of coming to terms with that and yourself and your body and the world, of the traumas of youth and how we carry them, unaware, into our adult lives. Both ‘praise poem’ and ‘train’ stand out as significant works, transcendent in their composition, reaching towards some hard-to-define beauty, the essence of the joy of life and the pain that constitutes its double edge.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked Physical, Andrew McMillan's first full length collection of poetry. I loved playtime, a collection in much the same vein but with fewer misses, more uniformly accessible. That doesn't mean it was comfortable, that I read it unprotesting: there were several poems I wished hadn't needed to be written, where 'too much information' was the information I had been missing. I do not mean by this simply that McMillan writes of the nitty gritty of homosexuality... unless by this you include hair transplants. You have to be good to get away with McMillan's subject matter, and he's good.

[Matthew Tett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raw, animalistic, almost meaty collection, following on from McMillan’s Physical. This is a collection that is firmly rooted in the poet’s life - of discovering his sexuality, predominantly - but also about other, fairly primal elements of his life.

I read this pretty quickly - it’s a short but impactful collection that I feel is best appreciated in this way. McMillan has taken some risks in his life, many of which some of us would definitely shy away from. But regardless, the poetry’s candid nature makes one feel privy to his experiences - and we can all learn a lot from that.

[Zvi · Rating 1 out of 5]

If someone wants to write erotica, or even just gay fiction, they should do so and do it proudly. But to dress it up as poetry when it’s just unfinished notes about gay sex cheapens both gay erotica (which I love) and gay poetry (which I also love). The author does both genres a disservice by trying to be too clever by half and ending up insulting most people who would want to read this. A sad attempt to be bold which comes across as insulting to the gay experience

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brimming with visceral sexuality, McMillan’s poems are frank and candid, yet also dreamlike and hypnotic, like vivid memories from your childhood or adolescence that come to you now only as dizzying sensations. This collection can be both devoured and savoured. Favourites included ‘To The Circumcised’, ‘Damp’, ‘Watching MMA’ and ‘Returning’.

[t o m (T.J. Reads the Stars) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really powerful stuff in here. McMillan’s poetry is so physically intimate whilst being emotionally distant, which showcases masculine sexual repression in such a profound and impactful way. Really glad I read this one.

“why is it when men look down at the fraying cloth of their hearts their instinct is to measure with their hands.”
- ‘Boxing Booth’

[Johan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must be read from cover to cover! These poems tell a powerful and compelling narrative of our intimate sexual desires and of how we move our being into this world through them. The rhythm and pace are humble yet beautiful and you will feel yourself choking and almost shed a delicate tear down your cheek whilst finishing reading a handful of them.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

"(...)part of me always thought all men desired

to re-enter the chamber of their birth
that war was just a symptom of their rage at not being able to(...)"

"(...)men
equate power with the suffering
of others why it is when men look down
at the fraying cloth of their hearts
their instinct is to mend it with their hands"