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"Beforelight explores queer childhood as a site of rupture and queer coming-of-age as a process of both becoming and unbecoming. The speaker in these poems confronts the impacts of ruptured relationships and trauma on his nascent identity. Grounded, lyrical, and deeply psychological, these poems grapple with the fragility of our most formative relationships - familial, communal and ancestral - as the speaker searches for a communion with himself, and how not to "make a life out of pain."--
About the author
Matthew Gellman is the author of Night Logic, selected by Denise Duhamel as the winner of Tupelo Press' Snowbound Chapbook Prize. The recipient of awards and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and Brooklyn Poets, he holds an MFA from Columbia University and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Summary
Beforelight explores queer childhood as a site of rupture and queer coming-of-age as a process of both becoming and unbecoming. With wisdom and grace, the speaker in these poems confronts the impacts of fragmented relationships and trauma on his nascent identity, ultimately committing to the self's authenticity as the highest form of devotion. Lush, cinematic, and deeply psychological, these poems grapple with the fragility of our most formative connections—familial, communal, and ancestral—as the speaker searches for communion with himself and tries to discover how not to “make a life out of pain.”
