The Resignation

by Lonely Christopher

Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. "THE RESIGNATION meditates on the fraught relation between multitudes such sonnets, sexy lakes, sestinas, psychoanalysis, realistic nightgowns, Bert & Ernie's slutty leather gear, the childhood fantasy of the mother-vulture, and Puritan speech. Magnetic fields of explanation nervously masturbate in a public portal of joyously reappropriated repression. How do you know this is for real? Because there is power and vast broken light. There is nothing but pleasure. And there is this clear place within care."--Rachel Zolf

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2018

About the author

LONELY CHRISTOPHER is the author of the short story collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse, several poetry chapbooks, and the volume Into (with Christopher Sweeney and Robert Snyderman). As a librettist and playwright, his dramatic works have been published, staged in New York City and internationally, and released in Mandarin translation. He is a founding member of the small press The Corresponding Society and an editor of its biannual journal Correspondence. He lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

Reviews

[V · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exploration of desire, hope, and disappointment. A book of experiments in queer defeatism, it's full of significant highs and lows. There were interesting conceptual frameworks, a few poems that were too opaque or nihilistic for my taste, and at least one poem that made me stop and really feel something. In particular, sonnets, lyrics, poems that risk sentiment, were strong points, transcending the sometimes narcissistic irony of the collection. Overall, it's an affecting and inventive, if inconsistent, read.