The Unbuttoned Eye

by Robert Carr

As events unfold through the first decades of the AIDS pandemic, a public health crisis that transformed a generation, the speaker in The Unbuttoned Eye insists on the survival of the erotic in the face of life-threatening disease. In sex clubs, men eat whipped cream off bodies wrapped in cellophane. In a neighbor’s home, a young man dies on a sofa as toxic medication from a drip line strips color out of fabric. These poems dive deeply into an emotional world of contradiction, as the speaker follows desire and detaches from intimacy in order to survive. Photographs of the poet as an artist’s model whisper in dialogue with the reader and with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe as poems ask–Who are your dead? What is the texture of possession? This collection is an unflinching journey into the evolution of identity. Each poem challenges our definitions of compassion, trauma and love.

114 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Carr's "The Unbuttoned Eye" harkens as an artistic masterpiece. First sight, the cover has a black and white portrait of the author, his head tilted back, hand on his head running through his hair, eyes closed in profile upward, a youthful face, possibly in ecstasy. And in the book are photographs from a photo session in the nude, from over thirty years ago. Given the history, of gay men and these photo sessions, there is a dialogue with Robert Mapplethorpe. The opening prose poem "Letter to Mapplethorpe" starts:

The paper-skin prints of my left, flip through your X portfolio. Polaroid fuck collective,
porcelain models pulled from Mineshaft piss. What draws me back? Sorting blue-blood photos?

This is a book of new writing, for the author is coming back to poetry after a long career in public health through the AIDS epidemic.

I first met Robert at AWP when his chapbook "Amaranth" his first book was published by Indolent Press. Before meeting him, I read his work on HIV Here & Now and was excited to read more. This book contains photographs he had near forgotten, but he found the photographer. Art and poetry combined; And Robert's writing is daring, sophisticated, polished, subtle yet risqué. He writes about gay men's sexuality, AIDS, raising a son with his partner, and the garden. And, he does it well.

I'll leave one more of his excellent poems from this book:

Life-Study Models

Barely men, thirty years ago, Robert dimples
at my self-conscious flex, muscled body
a frieze. We undress on a dais, drop white cotton
robes. The teacher, in her purple vest,
shows us a photograph — Wrestlers of Uffizi.
On the floor, knees spread, I'm on bottom.
He wraps my thigh, twists an arm. Students sketch
beside our stage. The room, a blush,
soft parts growing against my back, hardwood
trunk and huff of armpit. Without words,
locked eyes make evening plans. Taut tendon,
private hair of moss. Pencils sketch, cameras
click as we breath into the stance, finer than line.

Sheers billow over an unscreened window,
invitation to all things winged. Evening spins
through spring oak leaves. On my back I arch
and shudder, stretch open. Hands hold knobby knees.
I long for lost tickle, Robert's kinked black beard,
thick cords of dread caught in every crease.
Wrapped in a fist I grow still — age spotted,
a lichened twist growing out of night.

[Demetri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd love to have dinner with Robert.