The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer

by Eric Tran

In The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer, Eric Tran contends with the aftermath of a close friend’s suicide while he simultaneously explores the complexities of being a gay man of color. Grief opens into unraveling circles of inquiry as Tran reflects on the loss of his friend and of their shared identity as gay Asian American men. Through mourning and acute observations, these poems consider how those who experience marginalization, the poet included, may live and fall victim to tragedy. Tran explores how his life, even while in the company of desire and the pursuit of freedom, is never far from danger. Like grief that makes the whole world seem strange, Tran’s poetry merges into fantasy lands and rides the lines between imagined worlds and the reality of inescapable loss. At the intersection of queerness, loss, and desire, Tran uses current events, such as the Pulse nightclub tragedy, pop culture references, and comic book allusions to create a unique and textured poetry debut. He employs an unexpected pairing of prayer and fantasy allowing readers to imagine a world of queer joy and explore how grief can feel otherworldly. This collection shows a poet learning how to be afraid, to feel lost, to grieve, and to build a life amid precarious circumstances. The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer was the winner of the Autumn House Rising Writers Prize in 2019.
 

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

72 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 2020

Reviews

[Mary Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite poems: Starting with a Line by Joyce Byers, Eloisa-, My Mother Asks How I Was Gay before Sleeping with a Man, Revisions, Portraits of the Days' Griefs, Closure

[Ndobe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun to read! I specifically went and read the comics that were in used throughout and i love how they were woven into the narratives

[William Jeanes Memorial Library]

I’m really impressed by the variety of formatting in this poem. There’s blackout poetry for instance, but the poet plays with form in a meaningful way. I loved the way that language is used in the poem. It’s well thought out and really beautiful at times. It is interesting to see poetry that intersects Asian and LGBTQIA themes. I also love the inspiration that comes from popular media in this book. I don’t personally get the references, but I like how there are specific scenes in media that inspired some of the poetry.
-Patron J.L.

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Tran writes grief as a tangible thing we haunt over and over, since if it’s tangible—if we can feel it, taste it, find joy in the sadness of it—it must be mutable, we must be able to change it.

The poems in this book are humming with life, both living and gone, never forgotten but stuck to the marrow. Incredible, visceral work that speaks and moves like we do.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful tribute to grief that I'll return to several times, I can tell already.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really stunning. Tran does some playful and remarkable things with form. In general though, just absolutely shimmering language.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a phenomenal collection of poems! Grief, queerness, and comic books. Excellent.

[Alexa Doran · Rating 5 out of 5]

wild and exuberant as love itself. Tran reminds us that the other side of grief is yearning, that we are twined and shorn, that there is something beyond holy in any space not yet filled in...