Sunday, November 13, 2005

DV8

I'm also reading Rynn Williams' Adonis Garage winner of the 2004 Prairie Schooner Book Award, and just out from U. of Nebraska Press. The disco ball lights on the cover are perfect for this first book with poems recalling wild days of the 70's and 80's (I'm assuming) full of drugs, dancing, gay bars, drag queens. Reality hits home, friends die, she perhaps has an abusive boyfriend, eventually gets married and has kids, and later finds she is "Positive" with "Hep C." My favorite poem in the book is "In the Window of the DV8 Store Near My House." The poet is trying to explain to her three year-old daughter the collection of S/M paraphernalia she sees in a store window: "How do I tell her that sometimes you love/and hate at once? That there will be/serious games of hide and seek, you'll want/the bad guy to tie you to a stake, and also want/the prince to burst in and save you — . . ."

2 comments:

Radish King said...

Is that the same book with Fake Polio in it that I saw the other night? If so, I'd love to read it when you're finished. I promise not to keep it more than 17 months.
xor

Peter said...

No, that was Dog Language, by Chase Twichell, which is wonderful. Yes, I'll lend it to you soon.