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Gravity
Kinetic, undressed skin.
My hand
gliding across your naked spine.
In the right light,
all shivering boys look electric.
If I time it just right,
the space will align perfectly,
and I’ll reach between each atom
in your chest,
blending our flesh together.
I will undo everything
– I swear –
until you sing yourself
back to life.
I will meet many men after you,
each one hollow and lifeless
beneath their undressed flesh,
and repeat
the same desperate ritual
with them all.
—
PRAISE FOR “GRAVITY”
“How could poetry about violent assault, about homophobia, about dysmorphia and more all sparkle so brightly? Ari Lohr’s innovative language – and his charting of it – surprises reader skin like faraway fireworks. At just nineteen years old, he deals with heaviness with such light ease—and in Gravity, in such tight spaces, he’s made us a banging breathtaker.”
– Pascale Potvin, author of SEX, GOD, & OCD (Really Serious Literature, 2023)
“In Ari Lohr's stunning poetry collection Gravity, he explores a myriad of themes with vulnerability, urgency, and care, from the unspeakable violence committed against queer boys, to an ode to xyr teeth, to the tender ache of love poems penned to their lover Adam. I was left stunned and amazed by how he revealed and unspooled xyr words on the page, exploring the limits of single-word lines and sporadic, scattered phrases like staggered thoughts against the white. I'm eager for all readers to hold this collection in their hands soon, and for Ari to continue writing what they do best: telling stories through poetry and fearlessly making them known.”
– Sofía Aguilar, poet and author of STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv and STREAMING SERVICE: season two
“Gravity holds unyielding forces in its words: the crushing weight of an ever-expanding, ruthless universe, and death and love with the equal pull of their inevitability. Lohr navigates it all through a speaker who ‘is always reaching back’ while falling through these principles. Just like the collection named after it, Lohr confesses: ‘gravity is a silent killer.’”
– Sunny Vuong, editor-in-chief of Interstellar Literary Review
—
ARI LOHR is a queer poet and English Education major at Boston University. Xe is a Brave New Voices semifinalist, Slamlandia finalist, Portland Poetry Slam champion, and a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. Focusing on the mystical intersections between power, sexuality, and identity, Ari’s poetry appears in the Northern Otter Press, Opia Lit, Incandescent Review, and more. They are the author of EJAY., a confessional love letter / poetry chapbook, and Gravity, their debut full-length through Gutslut Press. They are also the managing editor of the Bitter Fruit Review and the editor-in-chief of the Jupiter Review. Xe believes truth is malleable, professionalism is violence, and arrogance is sexy. Ari can be found @arilohr on Twitter and Instagram.
My hand
gliding across your naked spine.
In the right light,
all shivering boys look electric.
If I time it just right,
the space will align perfectly,
and I’ll reach between each atom
in your chest,
blending our flesh together.
I will undo everything
– I swear –
until you sing yourself
back to life.
I will meet many men after you,
each one hollow and lifeless
beneath their undressed flesh,
and repeat
the same desperate ritual
with them all.
—
PRAISE FOR “GRAVITY”
“How could poetry about violent assault, about homophobia, about dysmorphia and more all sparkle so brightly? Ari Lohr’s innovative language – and his charting of it – surprises reader skin like faraway fireworks. At just nineteen years old, he deals with heaviness with such light ease—and in Gravity, in such tight spaces, he’s made us a banging breathtaker.”
– Pascale Potvin, author of SEX, GOD, & OCD (Really Serious Literature, 2023)
“In Ari Lohr's stunning poetry collection Gravity, he explores a myriad of themes with vulnerability, urgency, and care, from the unspeakable violence committed against queer boys, to an ode to xyr teeth, to the tender ache of love poems penned to their lover Adam. I was left stunned and amazed by how he revealed and unspooled xyr words on the page, exploring the limits of single-word lines and sporadic, scattered phrases like staggered thoughts against the white. I'm eager for all readers to hold this collection in their hands soon, and for Ari to continue writing what they do best: telling stories through poetry and fearlessly making them known.”
– Sofía Aguilar, poet and author of STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv and STREAMING SERVICE: season two
“Gravity holds unyielding forces in its words: the crushing weight of an ever-expanding, ruthless universe, and death and love with the equal pull of their inevitability. Lohr navigates it all through a speaker who ‘is always reaching back’ while falling through these principles. Just like the collection named after it, Lohr confesses: ‘gravity is a silent killer.’”
– Sunny Vuong, editor-in-chief of Interstellar Literary Review
—
ARI LOHR is a queer poet and English Education major at Boston University. Xe is a Brave New Voices semifinalist, Slamlandia finalist, Portland Poetry Slam champion, and a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. Focusing on the mystical intersections between power, sexuality, and identity, Ari’s poetry appears in the Northern Otter Press, Opia Lit, Incandescent Review, and more. They are the author of EJAY., a confessional love letter / poetry chapbook, and Gravity, their debut full-length through Gutslut Press. They are also the managing editor of the Bitter Fruit Review and the editor-in-chief of the Jupiter Review. Xe believes truth is malleable, professionalism is violence, and arrogance is sexy. Ari can be found @arilohr on Twitter and Instagram.
- GenresPoetry
108 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 2022
48 people want to read
About the author
Ari Lohr
3 books8 followersAri Lohr is a queer poet and English Education major at Boston University. He is a Brave New Voices semifinalist, Slamlandia finalist, Portland Poetry Slam champion, and a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. Focusing on the mystical intersections between power, sexuality, and identity, Ari’s poetry appears in the Northern Otter Press, Opia Lit, and more. He is the author of EJAY., a confessional love letter / poetry chapbook, and Gravity, his debut full-length poetry book with Gutslut Press. He is also the managing editor of the Bitter Fruit Review and the editor-in-chief of the Jupiter Review. He believes truth is malleable, professionalism is violence, and arrogance is sexy. Ari can be found at arilohr.com, or @arilohr on instagram.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 1, 2023
Many would say that the sign of a good book, is that you cannot put it down.
I don't disagree. However, I have elevated my thinking, thus my perception has changed. For me, the sign of a good book is that it engages you, speaks to you, and solicits from you. Regardless of whether you speed through it like a bat out of hell, or must struggle through it. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Like an arduous hike or mountain trek, until you finally, and victoriously, can proclaim you have reached the summit.
For me, reading Gravity, was like that mountain trek. It was an intense and fateful climb, but it was one I enjoyed all the same.
It's heavy, it's hearty, it's raw. It hides nothing, either in context or in the ways it lays down language. It isn't pretentious. There isn't some inside joke lauded over your head that will make you feel inept because you can't reach it. It's poetry, at its truest, I think. I love that even more.
I do not know that I can say anything that others have not. I do not know that I can praise Ari's work, that I can find the words to properly utter its magnitude into being. I won't waste much more time or space here with empty words. I'll simply say this: READ THIS BOOK.
I think it is worth that much. Read this book. Let it whisper to you. Let it solicit from you. In the end, see how you feel. How you've been changed. How you've been awakened.
I don't disagree. However, I have elevated my thinking, thus my perception has changed. For me, the sign of a good book is that it engages you, speaks to you, and solicits from you. Regardless of whether you speed through it like a bat out of hell, or must struggle through it. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Like an arduous hike or mountain trek, until you finally, and victoriously, can proclaim you have reached the summit.
For me, reading Gravity, was like that mountain trek. It was an intense and fateful climb, but it was one I enjoyed all the same.
It's heavy, it's hearty, it's raw. It hides nothing, either in context or in the ways it lays down language. It isn't pretentious. There isn't some inside joke lauded over your head that will make you feel inept because you can't reach it. It's poetry, at its truest, I think. I love that even more.
I do not know that I can say anything that others have not. I do not know that I can praise Ari's work, that I can find the words to properly utter its magnitude into being. I won't waste much more time or space here with empty words. I'll simply say this: READ THIS BOOK.
I think it is worth that much. Read this book. Let it whisper to you. Let it solicit from you. In the end, see how you feel. How you've been changed. How you've been awakened.
November 4, 2022
Another absolute gem from poet, artist, and mastermind Ari Lohr. A truly eclectic, genre-defiant collection, and a wonderful full-length debut for the author, Gravity is queer image/text, graphic design, and poetics at their finest.
November 4, 2022
it would be embarrassing if i gave my own book anything other than five stars
July 25, 2023
This book hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to take breaks while reading because I started crying. So much that my cats were getting worried. Gravity is a powerful and at times emotionally brutal work.
Ari Lohr crafts glittering, awe-inspiring lines with amazing movement and use of space on the page. Xyr's erasure poem was brilliant as it was gutwrenching to me. Truly an excellent book, beautiful and painful, full of love and longing. Reading this reminded me of how it felt when I first started reading queer poetry.
I’ve tried to think if I have a particular favorite piece in this book. To be honest, it’s probably the whole damn book because I can’t think of what I like about one poem without thinking about how it connects to another or how they work so well together.
Very badass book and I highly recommend it!
Ari Lohr crafts glittering, awe-inspiring lines with amazing movement and use of space on the page. Xyr's erasure poem was brilliant as it was gutwrenching to me. Truly an excellent book, beautiful and painful, full of love and longing. Reading this reminded me of how it felt when I first started reading queer poetry.
I’ve tried to think if I have a particular favorite piece in this book. To be honest, it’s probably the whole damn book because I can’t think of what I like about one poem without thinking about how it connects to another or how they work so well together.
Very badass book and I highly recommend it!
December 11, 2022
I don’t know what I can say about this collection that hasn’t already been said by many. I found myself holding my breath and stifling tears as I read these beautiful, honest, and raw words.
Lohr does wonderful work lyrically painting a picture of true pain, love, loss, and anger. The themes all flow together so well and I could not put this down.
Such a mesmerizing and deeply heartfelt body of work.
Lohr does wonderful work lyrically painting a picture of true pain, love, loss, and anger. The themes all flow together so well and I could not put this down.
Such a mesmerizing and deeply heartfelt body of work.
October 13, 2023
Lohr's collection is filled with the energy of youth, young confessional writing with all of the pungency and risk involved. These poems emerge with an urgency that comes out of a tumultuous childhood straight into a queer sexuality in adolescence, tackling body dysmorphia--and pull the reader along with them--until they've taken you to "a place beyond where bodies can go." In Driving Home from A Hiking Trip we can see the beginnings of the developing poet, at first using the eye to escape a stuffy car where parents are arguing in the front seat and then creating a visual omelet out of the cascade mountains:
“Mom sighs
and starts driving
again,
leaving
whatever they were fighting about
to fry
on the road
behind them.”
This escape into meaning punctuates the realizations the poet will make throughout the text.
Gravity takes readers to a private world where a birth defect is a sign of constant awe and moldy bagels are spotted blue mockingbird's eggs. All the while unafraid to speak "cruel, mundane language" as long as it leads to "unspeakable truths." It is this cruel mundane language that moves the collection instanter to its second section titled Erasing My Rape in which the author layers palimpsestic memories and text atop reddit posts, then composes erasures of journal entries about the event coming to rest on a conclusion that is as surprising as it is life-affirming; that "nothing but what I write is endless."
The collection finds it difficult not to "push on your wound." Oscillating between its subjects that challenge its author in honest ways and sublimating those same subjects into impossibility. This occurs when cut-ups of 911 calls from the Pulse Nightclub shooting are immediately followed by eating chicken nuggets at McDonalds, subjects that in linking create frictions that, as Lohr intelligently states, are "slightly too chewy," such that we "hide beneath [a] shirt collar between each bite."
None of this centers on the title of the piece, Gravity, but threads leading to it are peppered throughout the collection in the form of a repeating character, Adam, a past lover who studies physics and very likely ended their life at the Golden Gate Bridge. It is through the exploration of this suicide that the collection flexes its true powers, through a winding poem that is as much a diary entry wound as it is an epistolary message to the deceased:
“since they share the same charge,
electrons on the outside
of atoms repel each
other. technically speaking,
the closest one gets
to touching something
is hovering just
above it.”
The poet takes that distanced view used in the first few pages, analyzing the event the way Adam might, reaching an impossible conclusion that suspends the act in air. If we can never really touch, the water never really kills those who jump. Wislawa Symborska is a poet who believed in the power of writing to recompose the structure of possibility, in her poem The Joy of Writing, she states: “the twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities.” I believe that Lohr subscribes to the same philosophy:
“truthfully, Adam,
my pen
is the only force
keeping gravity from
killing you
a second time.”
“Mom sighs
and starts driving
again,
leaving
whatever they were fighting about
to fry
on the road
behind them.”
This escape into meaning punctuates the realizations the poet will make throughout the text.
Gravity takes readers to a private world where a birth defect is a sign of constant awe and moldy bagels are spotted blue mockingbird's eggs. All the while unafraid to speak "cruel, mundane language" as long as it leads to "unspeakable truths." It is this cruel mundane language that moves the collection instanter to its second section titled Erasing My Rape in which the author layers palimpsestic memories and text atop reddit posts, then composes erasures of journal entries about the event coming to rest on a conclusion that is as surprising as it is life-affirming; that "nothing but what I write is endless."
The collection finds it difficult not to "push on your wound." Oscillating between its subjects that challenge its author in honest ways and sublimating those same subjects into impossibility. This occurs when cut-ups of 911 calls from the Pulse Nightclub shooting are immediately followed by eating chicken nuggets at McDonalds, subjects that in linking create frictions that, as Lohr intelligently states, are "slightly too chewy," such that we "hide beneath [a] shirt collar between each bite."
None of this centers on the title of the piece, Gravity, but threads leading to it are peppered throughout the collection in the form of a repeating character, Adam, a past lover who studies physics and very likely ended their life at the Golden Gate Bridge. It is through the exploration of this suicide that the collection flexes its true powers, through a winding poem that is as much a diary entry wound as it is an epistolary message to the deceased:
“since they share the same charge,
electrons on the outside
of atoms repel each
other. technically speaking,
the closest one gets
to touching something
is hovering just
above it.”
The poet takes that distanced view used in the first few pages, analyzing the event the way Adam might, reaching an impossible conclusion that suspends the act in air. If we can never really touch, the water never really kills those who jump. Wislawa Symborska is a poet who believed in the power of writing to recompose the structure of possibility, in her poem The Joy of Writing, she states: “the twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities.” I believe that Lohr subscribes to the same philosophy:
“truthfully, Adam,
my pen
is the only force
keeping gravity from
killing you
a second time.”
December 27, 2022
In his celestial book of poetry, Ari Lohr hits you with an opening salvo: "gravity is a silent killer." And, over the course of four sections (Love, Rape, Death, & Nothing), Lohr uses gravity to do just that...silently grip us in the fist of his beautifully profound prose until we are crushed into nothingness, matter that then goes on to become something altogether new and different. This collection explores the ideas of gravity in all the way it exists, from the physical cosmic pull to the weightiness of subject matter whose heft manages to ground us in the same way the spin of our own planet does.
But, Lohr does more than tether us to the surface of his world. He draws us beneath, using lyricism and memory to excavate a niche just large enough for the reader to bear witness to moments and vignettes both intimate and severe, both pure and scarring. From the discovery that the things we hate about our own body may just be what our lovers cherish the most to the haunting chorus of a gunned down queer boy singing from beneath the soil, Lohr smears a collage across the mind's eye with his pen through the act of - as he puts it - "love in the language of ink."
By the end of the book, you cannot help but leave a piece of yourself in Lohr's universe, a universe dotted with planets made of blue, rotting bagels and white, egg-shaped mountains. You cannot help but find a kindred in the spirit of Lohr's narrator, who spares nothing and bares everything until, like him, you are screaming "Dear god, let me leave this place." Not because it affronts. But, rather, because it confronts and illuminates the corners of our own universes that are far easier to leave in the shadows. Shadows whose edges we can no longer skirt.
But, Lohr does more than tether us to the surface of his world. He draws us beneath, using lyricism and memory to excavate a niche just large enough for the reader to bear witness to moments and vignettes both intimate and severe, both pure and scarring. From the discovery that the things we hate about our own body may just be what our lovers cherish the most to the haunting chorus of a gunned down queer boy singing from beneath the soil, Lohr smears a collage across the mind's eye with his pen through the act of - as he puts it - "love in the language of ink."
By the end of the book, you cannot help but leave a piece of yourself in Lohr's universe, a universe dotted with planets made of blue, rotting bagels and white, egg-shaped mountains. You cannot help but find a kindred in the spirit of Lohr's narrator, who spares nothing and bares everything until, like him, you are screaming "Dear god, let me leave this place." Not because it affronts. But, rather, because it confronts and illuminates the corners of our own universes that are far easier to leave in the shadows. Shadows whose edges we can no longer skirt.
December 13, 2022
"do you know what it sounds like to die?"
Ari Lohr's collection, Gravity, is a poignant and raw insight into xyr unfiltered emotion that allows readers to make witness to the intricacies of queer pain. The intertwining of physics and feeling in Gravity makes for a profoundly existential expression of love, doubt and grief, picking readers apart as they delve ever deeper into Lohr's story. The unapologetic expression of Lohr's struggles allows the reader to peer into themselves and see their reflection in his words. From the gradual, tear-inducing 'A Self-erasing Elegy to my Rape' to the harrowing 'They Hid in a Closet', Lohr's poems are a must-read for anyone who has struggled with themselves and the world around them. Ari Lohr is definitely a name to watch out for, and I personally am excited to see how their voice and style evolves over time.
"This
is death
before death.
This is loving you to the moon
and then some"
Ari Lohr's collection, Gravity, is a poignant and raw insight into xyr unfiltered emotion that allows readers to make witness to the intricacies of queer pain. The intertwining of physics and feeling in Gravity makes for a profoundly existential expression of love, doubt and grief, picking readers apart as they delve ever deeper into Lohr's story. The unapologetic expression of Lohr's struggles allows the reader to peer into themselves and see their reflection in his words. From the gradual, tear-inducing 'A Self-erasing Elegy to my Rape' to the harrowing 'They Hid in a Closet', Lohr's poems are a must-read for anyone who has struggled with themselves and the world around them. Ari Lohr is definitely a name to watch out for, and I personally am excited to see how their voice and style evolves over time.
"This
is death
before death.
This is loving you to the moon
and then some"
January 12, 2023
Holy wow. By far, this book is the best book of poetry I've read in a long time. Lohr writes with such shimmering urgency and honesty while masterfully grappling over whether everything is nothing or nothing is everything. Moving. Tender. This collection made me cry, made me ache, made me feel, presented the most difficult moments in life and left me broken but also whole and also nothing. Lohr has harnessed something so desperately beautiful. I can't wait to see what the future holds for this poet.
February 4, 2023
Ari Lohr’s heart fills the pages of Gravity, a beautiful, introspective examination of grief, imperfection, fear, love, hope, queerness, humanity.
November 30, 2022
I read this without knowing anything more than that it was a poetry collection by queer poet Ari Lohr. It opens with a brief prelude about the fathomlessness of gravity and space, which isn't about either, exactly. I knew from the opening blurbs and the table of contents that the content was going to include rape and violence. As someone who has experienced sexual violence and written about it, these words take on a recognizable meaning,
"you don't disappear; you don't die. You just change form."
"No one knows how the universe began; no one knows how it will end, if it will end. Compelling theories exist, but scientists don't have a definite answer."
Substitute the words "how the universe began" with "how the rape happened" and we"re in familiar territory, as survivors. The trauma certainly can feel like it will never end.
The prelude ends with,
"Everything that is, everything that ever was, everything we once knew, begins and ends in darkness. Can you fathom that?"
The last "that" might be the universe of trauma. Consider yourself trigger-warned.
Part 1 of the collection is called simply "LOVE," and it, too, opens with a prelude, and a brutal and shocking one, having to do with hunting and prey, another obvious foreshadowing. I had to pause and breathe for a few minutes before continuing.
The first poem, Falling, juxtaposes the seduction and danger of queer love existing in public and ends with a city haunted by "ghosts of / queer / boys."
The second poem, Driving Home From a Hiking Trip, perfectly captures how memories of our childhood can be a confusing melange of nostalgia and trauma. The memory of an angry father lashing out at a mother and children from behind the wheel while driving on a family is likely to be familiar to a lot of readers.
This poem also highlights how seemingly mundane memories can stay with us long enough to assume a mysterious significance, like clues to the mystery of ourselves. Seeing the Cascades through the car window -- something that could only have lasted a few seconds -- forms imagery that persists like a recurring dream.
The poems in this section continue to reveal more of the inner life of the poet. Buck teeth, "lip incompetence," blowjobs, anorexia, and body dysphoria all make appearances. The narrative flow is more stream-of-consciousness than linear, highlighting the difficulties inherent in examining a life from within.
When love does finally make an appearance, it's tender and vulnerable.
"How do I tell you
that the first time
I knew I loved you
was on our third date
when you told me
that this "
this
was your favorite version of me:
When my guard is down.
When my jaw is dropped.
When my mouth hangs open."
The final few poems in this section reveal more about the lovers, and love in general, as an enduring power. The lover is named Adam, which sounds like a cliche but, if so, a totally apt one with its simultaneous allusions to "original sin" and first love.
The brief second section, RAPE, contains the more experimental poems of the collection. Lohr brilliantly overcomes the difficulty in using written language to describe an experience that the brain itself can"t easily understand or grapple with.
A Self-Erasing Elegy To My Rape, in four parts, consists of (some of) the same words being used in entirely different ways. Through faded type, superimposition, repetition, erasure, staccato phrasing, and spacing, Lohr perfectly simulates a mind reeling to make sense of a senseless and violent act by recreating the fog of trauma. One middle section, in particular, mimics the kind of racing thoughts that often result from trauma-induced mania.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the third section, DEATH, is the longest. I read the collection just two days after the horrifying invasion of Club Q by a fascist homophobe who killed five people and wounded seventeen more. A Song For the Gay Boys Who Never Came Home From Pride, in four parts, contains some gut-wrenching passages that might have read as heartbreaking prescience,
"to paint / a target / on your back / and / dance / to / the / rhythm / of / bullets / flying / through / the / nightclub / air? "
We know that Lohr is referring to the Pulse nightclub here, but these kinds of attacks against LBGTQ+ people are too frequent to assign these words to a single event. This section is at once a dirge and a litany.
Thankfully, Lohr tempers the tragedy somewhat with flashes of dark beauty in the final moments of some of the dead.
"have you heard
the song
of a last breath,
felt the symphony falling
from your lips?"
"have you heard
the sound of a dead boy
singing
beneath the dirt?
the orchestra
of his outstretched hands
praying for the conductor
to finish the song
already?"
"do you know why we love music so much?
the beat reminds us we are still alive."
Still, these poems are devastating in their stark, spare descriptions of the violence of hate. I had to put the book down several times before finishing it.
Throughout this difficult section, there are some profound metaphors, one of which, by itself, is subversive in the best possible way. At the same time, it acknowledges the reality of being queer in America. The title itself does the heavy lifting: They Hid In A Closet, made from snippets of 911 transcripts from the Pulse shooting, is a poem about the most primal of urges, which is survival. Here, the proverbial closet becomes a sanctuary.
References to the science of gravity and light permeate the collection, including variations on the phrase "light birthing heat." There are also many references to god and praying, but these are used in a universal sense more than a religious one. There are some lovely alliterations, such as the frequent occurrences of both "atom" and "Adam."
The final section is titled NOTHING, a word that appears thirteen times within it. But it's a trick, an illusion, like time and memory. The section begins,
"The night you died, 2,592,000 stars exploded somewhere in the universe.
There is nothing in the end.
Nothing.
Nothing
except"
What follows is everything. In the final three poems, the relationship between the poet and the lover, Adam, becomes more fleshed out and more tangible. Adam may be gone, but the love continues to grow. There's a gorgeous contradiction at the end of Essay On Leaving,
"no mix of words or music or memories
can touch that sense of
knowing
that you were there and alive"
for Adam, his love, and Lohr's love of him shines throughout this achingly sad and beautiful collection.
I once read that gravity was the primary cause of our bodies' failures as we age. Ever since, I've joked that "gravity is killing us." The last six words of this collection, which I don"t want to give away, prove me wrong.
"you don't disappear; you don't die. You just change form."
"No one knows how the universe began; no one knows how it will end, if it will end. Compelling theories exist, but scientists don't have a definite answer."
Substitute the words "how the universe began" with "how the rape happened" and we"re in familiar territory, as survivors. The trauma certainly can feel like it will never end.
The prelude ends with,
"Everything that is, everything that ever was, everything we once knew, begins and ends in darkness. Can you fathom that?"
The last "that" might be the universe of trauma. Consider yourself trigger-warned.
Part 1 of the collection is called simply "LOVE," and it, too, opens with a prelude, and a brutal and shocking one, having to do with hunting and prey, another obvious foreshadowing. I had to pause and breathe for a few minutes before continuing.
The first poem, Falling, juxtaposes the seduction and danger of queer love existing in public and ends with a city haunted by "ghosts of / queer / boys."
The second poem, Driving Home From a Hiking Trip, perfectly captures how memories of our childhood can be a confusing melange of nostalgia and trauma. The memory of an angry father lashing out at a mother and children from behind the wheel while driving on a family is likely to be familiar to a lot of readers.
This poem also highlights how seemingly mundane memories can stay with us long enough to assume a mysterious significance, like clues to the mystery of ourselves. Seeing the Cascades through the car window -- something that could only have lasted a few seconds -- forms imagery that persists like a recurring dream.
The poems in this section continue to reveal more of the inner life of the poet. Buck teeth, "lip incompetence," blowjobs, anorexia, and body dysphoria all make appearances. The narrative flow is more stream-of-consciousness than linear, highlighting the difficulties inherent in examining a life from within.
When love does finally make an appearance, it's tender and vulnerable.
"How do I tell you
that the first time
I knew I loved you
was on our third date
when you told me
that this "
this
was your favorite version of me:
When my guard is down.
When my jaw is dropped.
When my mouth hangs open."
The final few poems in this section reveal more about the lovers, and love in general, as an enduring power. The lover is named Adam, which sounds like a cliche but, if so, a totally apt one with its simultaneous allusions to "original sin" and first love.
The brief second section, RAPE, contains the more experimental poems of the collection. Lohr brilliantly overcomes the difficulty in using written language to describe an experience that the brain itself can"t easily understand or grapple with.
A Self-Erasing Elegy To My Rape, in four parts, consists of (some of) the same words being used in entirely different ways. Through faded type, superimposition, repetition, erasure, staccato phrasing, and spacing, Lohr perfectly simulates a mind reeling to make sense of a senseless and violent act by recreating the fog of trauma. One middle section, in particular, mimics the kind of racing thoughts that often result from trauma-induced mania.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the third section, DEATH, is the longest. I read the collection just two days after the horrifying invasion of Club Q by a fascist homophobe who killed five people and wounded seventeen more. A Song For the Gay Boys Who Never Came Home From Pride, in four parts, contains some gut-wrenching passages that might have read as heartbreaking prescience,
"to paint / a target / on your back / and / dance / to / the / rhythm / of / bullets / flying / through / the / nightclub / air? "
We know that Lohr is referring to the Pulse nightclub here, but these kinds of attacks against LBGTQ+ people are too frequent to assign these words to a single event. This section is at once a dirge and a litany.
Thankfully, Lohr tempers the tragedy somewhat with flashes of dark beauty in the final moments of some of the dead.
"have you heard
the song
of a last breath,
felt the symphony falling
from your lips?"
"have you heard
the sound of a dead boy
singing
beneath the dirt?
the orchestra
of his outstretched hands
praying for the conductor
to finish the song
already?"
"do you know why we love music so much?
the beat reminds us we are still alive."
Still, these poems are devastating in their stark, spare descriptions of the violence of hate. I had to put the book down several times before finishing it.
Throughout this difficult section, there are some profound metaphors, one of which, by itself, is subversive in the best possible way. At the same time, it acknowledges the reality of being queer in America. The title itself does the heavy lifting: They Hid In A Closet, made from snippets of 911 transcripts from the Pulse shooting, is a poem about the most primal of urges, which is survival. Here, the proverbial closet becomes a sanctuary.
References to the science of gravity and light permeate the collection, including variations on the phrase "light birthing heat." There are also many references to god and praying, but these are used in a universal sense more than a religious one. There are some lovely alliterations, such as the frequent occurrences of both "atom" and "Adam."
The final section is titled NOTHING, a word that appears thirteen times within it. But it's a trick, an illusion, like time and memory. The section begins,
"The night you died, 2,592,000 stars exploded somewhere in the universe.
There is nothing in the end.
Nothing.
Nothing
except"
What follows is everything. In the final three poems, the relationship between the poet and the lover, Adam, becomes more fleshed out and more tangible. Adam may be gone, but the love continues to grow. There's a gorgeous contradiction at the end of Essay On Leaving,
"no mix of words or music or memories
can touch that sense of
knowing
that you were there and alive"
for Adam, his love, and Lohr's love of him shines throughout this achingly sad and beautiful collection.
I once read that gravity was the primary cause of our bodies' failures as we age. Ever since, I've joked that "gravity is killing us." The last six words of this collection, which I don"t want to give away, prove me wrong.
December 6, 2022
GRAVITY, Ari Lohr's newest & from Gutslut Press, precedes the table of contents with four facts about space. The latter just as assuredly introduces its four sections: LOVE, RAPE, DEATH, and NOTHING. Already, we know Lohr will be dragging through the dirt of the world's most traumatic experiences.
I felt I had experienced a lifetime with Lohr by the time—and every time—I finished this collection, and yet its power is pure, potent adolescence. Still, despite the heartbreaks and insecurities typical of a (queer) teenage experience—despite the violence, the injustices that still should never be, yet are—Lohr's confidence in expressing those nuances is clear.
Overall, I enjoyed GRAVITY for its exploration of ways that words can take up the page (fitting, I think, for an exploration of space as concept). It jumps through wormholes from prose poetry, to shape poetry and erasure; even more, it weaves narratives together with celestial control. Until the end of the collection, Lohr is not afraid to keep revisiting ideas, themes— entire poems, even, that we'd mistaken for finished punching us in the gut.
I quite literally gasped at some of these lines, which of perfectly evokes the author's imagery of being trapped: in outer space, maybe, but also in one's unoxygenated body. In the end, these poems are their own new planets—and each adapts, shapes itself to the material—they build us lifeforms to worship as metaphors for hurting, then healing. Truly, GRAVITY is a fresh take on material with centuries of contemplation to its name.
The title poem is a standout among them all, in my opinion, with so many quotable lines I'd be reciting it all by including them.
"i could write
a metaphor for water,
compare the ocean
to god –
say
in the seconds
before impact, you found
yourself in its image,
your arm
outstretched
& shivering in the
kinetic midnight air.
to do so, however,
would imply
you never actually
touched it."
Of course, I'm not going to do that! Please go ahead and purchase the book to see all of the magic for yourself.
I felt I had experienced a lifetime with Lohr by the time—and every time—I finished this collection, and yet its power is pure, potent adolescence. Still, despite the heartbreaks and insecurities typical of a (queer) teenage experience—despite the violence, the injustices that still should never be, yet are—Lohr's confidence in expressing those nuances is clear.
Overall, I enjoyed GRAVITY for its exploration of ways that words can take up the page (fitting, I think, for an exploration of space as concept). It jumps through wormholes from prose poetry, to shape poetry and erasure; even more, it weaves narratives together with celestial control. Until the end of the collection, Lohr is not afraid to keep revisiting ideas, themes— entire poems, even, that we'd mistaken for finished punching us in the gut.
I quite literally gasped at some of these lines, which of perfectly evokes the author's imagery of being trapped: in outer space, maybe, but also in one's unoxygenated body. In the end, these poems are their own new planets—and each adapts, shapes itself to the material—they build us lifeforms to worship as metaphors for hurting, then healing. Truly, GRAVITY is a fresh take on material with centuries of contemplation to its name.
The title poem is a standout among them all, in my opinion, with so many quotable lines I'd be reciting it all by including them.
"i could write
a metaphor for water,
compare the ocean
to god –
say
in the seconds
before impact, you found
yourself in its image,
your arm
outstretched
& shivering in the
kinetic midnight air.
to do so, however,
would imply
you never actually
touched it."
Of course, I'm not going to do that! Please go ahead and purchase the book to see all of the magic for yourself.
November 6, 2022
An incredible debut collection of poems I will be reading over and over again for quite a while. Piercing with a force at times surprising, often revelatory, Gravity never ceases to draw you back to Earth every time your mind begins to float amidst the starry nebulae of its wondrous language. Love, trauma, the body, and the soul, all merge in this thematically coherent ensign of a revivifying queerness all to form a something bigger than a poetry collection, something too other to be named. Lohr is a name one should keep at the front of their mind in coming years as it is clear to me, and should be to any other reader who can discern the murmurings of a turn beginning to take form amidst the brightest of contemporary poetry's voices, that we have not heard the last from them. Though still young, Lohr seems to have tapped into the consciousness of a movement before it has yet become so, like a prophet in the wilderness announcing some new epoch, and we all would do well to take heed and prepare. Dear I say we may be witnessing the beginning of a career that will one day be recognized as that of a generational talent? Read for yourself and see what I mean.
February 25, 2023
"From this far away,
the Cascades look like one thing
and one thing only –
An upside
down egg carton."
Lohr writes about assault, hate crimes, love and death in their collection "Gravity". I really enjoyed reading this and know that I will revisit it. I found it particularly honest and aware of itself, which is what I seek in poetry collections. I felt the brutality in the poems about assault, and also the naivety in a metaphor about eating chicken nuggets and counting the bites (I used to do almost exactly what xe described in this, as a neurodivergent child). All of it comes together in one collection crunched down upon and made consumable by gravity.
the Cascades look like one thing
and one thing only –
An upside
down egg carton."
Lohr writes about assault, hate crimes, love and death in their collection "Gravity". I really enjoyed reading this and know that I will revisit it. I found it particularly honest and aware of itself, which is what I seek in poetry collections. I felt the brutality in the poems about assault, and also the naivety in a metaphor about eating chicken nuggets and counting the bites (I used to do almost exactly what xe described in this, as a neurodivergent child). All of it comes together in one collection crunched down upon and made consumable by gravity.
March 14, 2023
Stunning identity focused collection that gets at the heart of many universal issues, but feels intimately personal. Ari's book bridges many topics: intamacy, identity, violence, love, memory, loss and many others. The poet's style and voice resonate throughout the collection through a combination of poetic styles and forms. Pieces are pages long and others just words, showcasing length and brevity, but always leaving the reading with the feeling of something innately human. A page turner that you won't put down until you are at the back cover. Something to come back to for rereadings as well.
October 15, 2023
I encountered this book in a little free library in Corvallis and was pleasantly surprised to find another great Oregon poet. Ari's work is personal and deeply felt, but speaks to themes that are still raw and unsolved among us. I particularly appreciated how the book makes use of the entire page as a canvas, elevating the words beyond 2 dimensional meanings. Thanks for sharing these poems with the world!
December 6, 2022
Loved it! Can’t wait for more from Ari.
July 19, 2023
A beautiful debut collection from Ari Lohr. There is so much vulnerability and truth to the words he puts on the page - dealing with subjects ranging anywhere from family to assault, from body dysmorphia to loss, from homophobia to falling deeply in love. Ari writes on all of these subjects with tenderness, and in such a way that shows how much he trusts his audience with each new poem. While there's plenty of grief to be found in this book, there's just as much bright joy and warmth. This book is a truly wonderful read!!
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