Song of a Reformed Headhunter

I'm an admirer of Rigoberto González's previous book Unpeopled Eden . In this new book, he continues his excavations into history in the poem "The Ghosts of Ludlow, 1914-2014," but also extends his range by writing a number of poems that read like parables. "A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons" returns to a major theme in Unpeopled Eden , but is both more general in its implications and more personal in its details. The effect is perhaps less urgency in the tone, but it is also more melancholic. The strongest achievement of this parable mode is, I think, "Hagiography of Brother Fire and Sister Smoke," which raises its elements up on an imaginative exploration of the qualities of both. It is because we think we know what fire and smoke are, and so we are constantly surprised by what the poet make of them in his vision.

Last night, at the Barnes & Noble at 82nd and Broadway, Lou Pizzitola hosted a reading of Divining Divas , an anthology of 100 poems by 100 gay poets on their muse. Editor Michael Montlack spoke about putting together the book, and then he read from it, followed by Guillermo Filice Castro, Lonely Christopher, Hansa Bergwall and Rigoberto Gonzalez. I read my anthology piece, "Study #5: After Frida Kahlo," and then two other parts from the same sequence, "Study #6: After Andy Warhol" and "Study #7: After Yasumasa Morimura." For my second poem from the anthology, I read Steve Fellner's funny and heartbreaking "Ode to Miss Piggy," a poem I remembered enjoying from his book The Weary World Rejoices . Despite the grey day and drizzle before the reading, the event room was packed, with about 75 people, a nice mix of both men and women. After the reading, the audience asked questions, mostly to do with editing the anthology. Then we sig...