Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Queer Mojo – A Rebel Satori Imprint
Pages: 126
Closer is a collection of sixty-two poems by gay writer/poet
Christopher Stephen Soden. These gems sparkle on the page, little snapshots of
a gay man’s life, experiences, hates and loves, frustrations and joys.
I am no expert on poetry, and seldom read poems by any
author, but I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. The writing is vivid,
powerful. The poignant observations behind each poem seemed like a leaf from my
own life, things I related to, only
couched with such beautiful prose that I often felt mesmerized, reading
many of them over and over just to wallow in Soden’s beautiful wordplay.
Excerpt from Cowboys:
Lives would be taken
judiciously:
Rustlers, horse
thieves, cardsharps.
We would learn to
recognize by blanket,
paint and
bracelet, the Indians
we could trust. You
and I take turns
crooning the cattle to
sleep,
swap dreams by the red
and purple
watchfire after
supper, snore together,
arms tangled in a
careless net
of reassurance, under
a vast
milk splash of
throbbing stars.
In the morning lather
the other’s back,
if we could find a
spangly brook.
Soden masterfully explores gay sexuality, virility, and
maleness, from the old west to ancient Greece. I found it an exotic ride
through a vivid landscape that was at once fresh and familiar.
Excerpt from Reprieve:
God scatters and casts
us away, far, far
from reconciliation
and mercy. Flailing
in a quagmire of apathy
and retaliation.
Ignorance. Sailing
headlong into deepening
waves of nightfall.
God’s orphans shivering
in the undertow of
November. Then, suddenly
snow. Drifting
patiently to gleaming heaps
of crystalline
sheaves. Coating everything
in a veil of blamelessness.
Flawless star
flakes aloft on
airstream, tickling nose,
ear and lash,
delicately covering the head
like astonishing,
weightless benediction.
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