Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire

Rating:
Summary: Direct, Honest, and Admirable
Review: Great art - and in turn, great literature - often possesses a rare quality, the ability to speak on an innate level to its audience, to make the audience feel as if the artist is speaking about an unspoken, universal quality of our own lives. And although it is difficult to say that the poets and poems of Bend Don't Shatter, are attempting some universal or transcendental quality, what they do - and do admirably well - is speak directly and honestly to the book's audience, all with an empathetic understanding.

Indeed, the editors of this compilation admit that they wanted their book to speak to perhaps those who might be the most vulnerable - sexually confused teens and gay teens. And much like most compilations there are poems that are successful, managing to be tender, introspective and almost hauntingly beautiful, while there are other poems that seem to fall dreadfully on their own faces.

Poems such as Scott Hightower's "Spending the Night," Rane Arroyo's "My Mysterious Body" and Randall Mann's "Elegy for the Hurdler," are definitive highlights to the collection. A poem such as John G. de la Parra, Jr.'s "Courage!" is indicative of a series of poems throughout that tell the young reader to be brave - and most importantly that they should always be themselves.

A poem such as Mick Coccia's "We Are Not Vegetarians," is problematic because it's so enigmatically minimalist that it's difficult to obtain much of a reason as to why it was placed within the collection. Ideally, the attempt is to cover a multitude of emotions and thought on the experience of being young and gay or young and sexually confused, to prove (paraphrasing one of the poets in the collection) that there is more than one [...] truth.

And that is what Bend Don't Shatter manages to do so amazingly well - but the reader should be aware that the book is aimed towards younger readers.



Rating:
Summary: An amazing, eclectic collection of poetry
Review: Reviewed by Small Spiral Notebook:

Bend, Don't Shatter is a joyous and heart-breaking collection of poems that examines the complexities of being a gay or lesbian teenager. The voices in these poems are heady with the strength of their newfound feelings, stark in their fear and pain, and beautiful in their depiction of first loves. There are experiences of shame and hurt in these stories, yes, but there is also hope. In "Playing for Love," Amanda R. Evans turns the language of tennis into a reflection on both the emptiness and the always electrifying chance of love: "`love-love' / And still when I say it, the hollowness of that sound / comes back: love as zero, full of possibility, waiting to be filled."

No matter what your sexuality, there is no doubt you will hear the echoes of your own adolescence among these pages-who isn't confused about sex and desire as a teenager? For that matter, who has it all figured out as an adult? For many young people these poems will no doubt be a great comfort, a lifeline out of loneliness and isolation. So much of our young lives are spent struggling with the notion of what it means to be "normal." We want to fit in, but we want to be unique; we want to be "normal" but we know we are greater than that simple label. This book reminds us all of the important fact that there is no such thing-we are each of us great, complex, unique beings, and that is something to celebrate. To that end the collection captures a varied and vivid cacophony of queer voices and stories, defying stereotypes and honoring the terror and wonder of emerging sexuality. More than one poem makes reference to the butterfly as an appropriate symbol for this period of transformation from something unsure and unassuming into something fragile but miraculous. It is not an inappropriate symbol for this book, either-a slim volume that is full of unexpected power and beauty. It is a voice for the too-often voiceless, and we can only hope it inspires a new generation of gay and lesbian poets to, as Gerard Wozek puts it, "dream their voices into the world, / a little wounded, but on fire."

Rating:
Summary: wonderful collection of poetry
Review: Reviewed by Small Spiral Notebook:

Bend, Don't Shatter is a joyous and heart-breaking collection of poems that examines the complexities of being a gay or lesbian teenager. The voices in these poems are heady with the strength of their newfound feelings, stark in their fear and pain, and beautiful in their depiction of first loves. There are experiences of shame and hurt in these stories, yes, but there is also hope. In "Playing for Love," Amanda R. Evans turns the language of tennis into a reflection on both the emptiness and the always electrifying chance of love: "'love-love' / And still when I say it, the hollowness of that sound / comes back: love as zero, full of possibility, waiting to be filled."

No matter what your sexuality, there is no doubt you will hear the echoes of your own adolescence among these pages-who isn't confused about sex and desire as a teenager? For that matter, who has it all figured out as an adult? For many young people these poems will no doubt be a great comfort, a lifeline out of loneliness and isolation. So much of our young lives are spent struggling with the notion of what it means to be "normal." We want to fit in, but we want to be unique; we want to be "normal" but we know we are greater than that simple label. This book reminds us all of the important fact that there is no such thing-we are each of us great, complex, unique beings, and that is something to celebrate. To that end the collection captures a varied and vivid cacophony of queer voices and stories, defying stereotypes and honoring the terror and wonder of emerging sexuality. More than one poem makes reference to the butterfly as an appropriate symbol for this period of transformation from something unsure and unassuming into something fragile but miraculous. It is not an inappropriate symbol for this book, either-a slim volume that is full of unexpected power and beauty. It is a voice for the too-often voiceless, and we can only hope it inspires a new generation of gay and lesbian poets to, as Gerard Wozek puts it, "dream their voices into the world, / a little wounded, but on fire."

Rating:
Summary: An amazing, eclectic collection of poetry
Review: This book is full to the brim with beautiful poems that address the confusion of youth. I found it inspiring to read. Any young person would find it hopeful and may be driven to write about their own feeling because of it. I think this a great book for highschool libraries where young people can find it and know that they are not alone.