The leaves are changing colors and the leaves are everywhere. I work at a café in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, and by mid-morning the leaves have blown in and filled the entryway. I sweep them up into a dustpan. I resist the urge to return them outside to blow around again and go elsewhere. I place them in the trashcan.
Autumn is my season of looking backwards and forwards. The year is coming to an end and I feel reflective about what I have and haven’t accomplished during it so far. I consider how I’ve grown, or if I’ve grown, as a person and as a poet. My birthday is also in autumn, in November, which makes it a time to look forward to where I’m going. My book, Another Man, will also be published in the fall, which means my life as a poet is also due to change and grow as that book makes its way into the world. Another Man is full of memories – memories of childhood, of my father, of my family and my becoming the adult I am today. It looks to the past but also cherishes the opportunity to have a future. Where are we going, what will our lives look like, now that we’ve learned to grieve?
Still, as the days get shorter and there’s an increasing nip in the air, I yearn for the spring I didn’t fully celebrate, the summer I could’ve enjoyed more fully. I mull over the past, think about people I’ve loved or left behind. As I write this, I’m wearing an old pair of athletic shorts I stole from my ex-boyfriend. The elastic is a little worn out. I think of him when I put them on. All of this is to say, I hold on to things a little too much, too willingly. Perhaps that’s why I write poems, this sense of holding on. Here are a few of my favorite books – some queer, some not-so-queer – you might want to carry with you through this season of in-betweenness.
Continue reading “7 Poetry Books for Your Hot & Heartbroken Girl/Boy/Nonbinary Autumn, Recommended by Jim Whiteside”