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The Spirit Can Crest, Steven Riel, Amherst
Writers & Artists Press, $16.00
"If Steven Riel were a window dresser instead of a poet his carefully placed objects in elegant proximities—as the words in the lines of these poems—would render tableaux with wry and tender precision so as to stir your spirit and stretch your heart." —Franklin Abbott, author of Mortal Love and editor of Boyhood, Growing Up Male "He should have either caved in or lashed out. I mean, what else do you do when society says you can’t be who you are. Not just once, but twice. Because you are Franco-American. Because you’re gay. But Steven Riel rejected the obvious choices. Instead, he decided to explore, examine, exist. In the process, he grew stronger and more comfortable in all of his identities. Not just Franco and gay, but in all of the plural ways that link us all together, in spite of the singularities. And somewhere along the way, he decided to take us along. Readers who, like me, discover the beautifully written—often breath-taking poems in this volume will most enthusiastically applaud that decision." —playwright Gregoire Chabot To order books, videos, make a tax deductible contribution, request the AWA newsletter, and/or subscribe to Peregrine, please download an order form, and mail it to us. (If you have difficulty downloading a form, please click here for assistance.) Make check payable to Amherst Writers & Artists Press. And, thank you for your support. |
Poetry.
Using familiar objects and shared stories, Steven evokes the tender, raw
moments of childhood in which we begin to know ourselves and to know how
others see us, and the distance between the two. He records the suddenly-opening
angles of vision which in adulthood reunite our childhood experience with
our adult realities, moments in which we discover the ever-shifting and
rich ambiguity of who we are.