Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The wise sense what is to come

The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy: A New Translation by C.P. Cavafy

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I know very little about poetry and even less about how to write about poetry, so to quote Prince, forgive me if this goes astray. I first heard of Cavafy when I was browsing through a book of gay love poems at Barnes and Noble back in my early twenties when I was first coming out. The simplicity of the poem made me think he was an ancient, perhaps the male equivalent of Sappho, but when I found this book, The Collected Poems of C.P. […]

Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and write the damned review

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

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I’ve put off this review far too long, and though I could just skip it, I don’t want to punk out when the reviewing gets tough. I really wanted to like Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, as it came highly recommended and was written by an African lesbian, a voice I haven’t heard before, but this book really didn’t work for me. That said, I didn’t dislike it enough to hate-review it, so I’m stuck in a kind of mushy middle of blah. Ijeoma […]

He kisses . . . like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can only use the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

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The Pulitzer Prize for fiction tends to be more miss than hit for me, especially in the last several years, so when I heard the announcement last spring about Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t know the author by name, hadn’t heard anything about the book, and figured I could safely skip this one. But then I read a brief synopsis: gay novelist in his 40’s, heartbroken and struggling with his work, runs away and something-something-I-don’t-remember because I stopped reading […]

She thought that maybe, just maybe, if she was beautiful, things would get better

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

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I’d heard for years that I should watch Paris is Burning, the groundbreaking documentary about the New York’s drag ball scene in the 1980’s, but I never quite got around to it for one reason or another. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when a friend told me just how much that movie influenced Rupaul’s Drag Race, that I finally forced myself to sit down and watch it. Needless to say, it’s brilliant and unforgettable, and shame on me for not watching it sooner. […]

More than the monsters get undressed

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“Forgive my bluntness, but… Goddamn, Sam Sax can write some poems. Ross Gay” And he can. I am not sure though if I like them or not. There are some fabulous images. He just explores what it was/is to be him. Gay, Jewish, male, a person and so much more. And he does it wonderfully, creatively, not easily through his poems. His experiences. His knowledge. Sax is not for the “I like flowers and pretty ponies” poetry crowd. He is for the “this poem will […]

I want Olivia Gatwood as my new best friend

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New American Best Friend is a book that makes me want Olivia Gatwood as my new best friend. Mostly because maybe then they can explain a few things to me. While the poems are straight forward, there are a few images I am trying to figure out what they mean as they can be interpreted a few ways. Then again, maybe that is the point? However, there is no real question about Ode to My Bitch Face (and trust me, if you say you did […]



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