LAVENDER SILK, Lonely Christopher
This is a multifaceted approach--lyrical, language-forward, narrative, conceptual, and confessional--to sussing out and reckoning with construction(s) of a midcentury queer identity. The speaker of these poems is half lodged in the world of Grindr and half lodged in the bygone world of Alvin Baltrop's piers. Using historical accounts, art history, New York City lore, and an assertive, uneasy, at times sardonic and at times hilarious flex of wit, street smarts, emotional gravity, and assurance, the reader is presented with a complicated bricolage of queerness, of self, of society.
"In Lavender Silk, Lonely Christopher's accumulated adjectives splatter each page with orgasmic delight. We perceive the sensory disorientation of living under capitalism and plagues, we "acquaint with that metallic taste / of an adrenalin spike"; to live in Christopher's poems is to absorb the absurd, the satirical, the loopiness of queer history's rollercoaster, from the degradation of ancient Rome to the "utopic clubhouse" faggotry of Singer Tower. Christopher invites everyone to "the torture festival," chronicling "bubblegum acid catastrophe" and "peripheral recrudescence" but never taking himself too seriously. Or as he closes the chapbook: “You have to accept it—I’m the greatest!”
— Reuben Gelley Newman"
Lonely Christopher is a multidisciplinary queer experimental writer of poetry, fiction, and drama for stage and screen. He is the author of five books, most recently the poetry collections In a January Would and the 10th anniversary reissue of Death & Disaster Series. He is the founding creative director of Inter Poets Theater, managing director of the Segue Foundation, and an editor for Roof Books. His plays have been presented in Canada, China, and the United States. His film credits include several international shorts and the feature MOM, which he wrote and directed. He has worked for a decade in the field of HIV treatment and prevention for homeless youth, at the Ali Forney Center and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and dog.
Lavender Silk, Lonely Christopher. 5.5" x 8.5," 30 pages. Copy printed in lavender ink on French lavender text weight paper, bound with purple staples, enshrouded in purple Mylar jackets. First edition of 150. Set in Grotesk BT Spiral and designed by The Aliens.
