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Soho
In this intimate and vital debut, Richard Scott creates an uncompromising portrait of love and gay shame. Examining how trauma becomes a part of the language we use, Scott takes us back to our roots: childhood incidents, the violence our scars betray, forgotten forebears and histories. The hungers of sexual encounters are underscored by the risks that threaten when we give ourselves to or accept another. But the poems celebrate joy and tenderness, too, as in a sequence re-imagining the love poetry of Verlaine.
The collection crescendos to Scott's tour de force, 'Oh My Soho!', where a night stroll under the street lamps of Soho Square becomes a search for true lineage, a reclamation of stolen ancestors, hope for healing, and, above all, the finding of our truest selves.
The collection crescendos to Scott's tour de force, 'Oh My Soho!', where a night stroll under the street lamps of Soho Square becomes a search for true lineage, a reclamation of stolen ancestors, hope for healing, and, above all, the finding of our truest selves.
78 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2018
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About the author
Richard Scott
3books14followersRichard Scott grew up in London and studied at the Royal College of Music and at Goldsmiths College. After working as an opera singer and presenting The Opera Hour on Resonance FM, Richard went on to win the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and become a Jerwood/Arvon Poetry mentee, a member of the Aldeburgh 8 and an Open Spaces artist resident at Snape Maltings in Suffolk. His pamphlet Wound (Rialto) won the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2016 and his poem ‘crocodile� won the 2017 Poetry London Competition. Soho is his first book and took ten years to write.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
March 20, 2023
Poems on being gay, with trauma and desire playing main roles. Sex is a binding topic, and I would have liked a bit more of a broad approach towards identity, but some poems did touch me
People say shit like it gets better
but what they mean is there’ll always be haters
only you’ll be older
[people say shit like it gets better]
The second part of the bundle was less convincing than the start, but is an interesting bundle. For instance bottoming is glorified in plug, trauma is being touched upon in Admission and the latent homo-eroticism of classical sculpture is adressed in museum
for the longest
time people told me
I must change my life
but this is my life
this adoration of
men this worship of
those the whom the
world has deemed
broken just as
you gave your
body to the earth
Corrosive influence of dating apps is tackled by in tinder:
yes no
does it matter there’s always another
each fitter than the last each newer
[even if you fuck me all vanilla in] commenting on how gay identity always is subversive to some in society.
Overall I liked the poems, but I would have liked some more variety, in the sense that sexuality and identity seems rather too tightly entwined in Soho. People are more than their sexuality, however marginalised (and therefor good to be celebrated) that part of their identity used to be. For instance Pastoral, on sauna sex in Soho versus having a suburb boyfriend, seems rather more in the confirming stereotype area than breaking the mould.
People say shit like it gets better
but what they mean is there’ll always be haters
only you’ll be older
[people say shit like it gets better]
The second part of the bundle was less convincing than the start, but is an interesting bundle. For instance bottoming is glorified in plug, trauma is being touched upon in Admission and the latent homo-eroticism of classical sculpture is adressed in museum
for the longest
time people told me
I must change my life
but this is my life
this adoration of
men this worship of
those the whom the
world has deemed
broken just as
you gave your
body to the earth
Corrosive influence of dating apps is tackled by in tinder:
yes no
does it matter there’s always another
each fitter than the last each newer
[even if you fuck me all vanilla in] commenting on how gay identity always is subversive to some in society.
Overall I liked the poems, but I would have liked some more variety, in the sense that sexuality and identity seems rather too tightly entwined in Soho. People are more than their sexuality, however marginalised (and therefor good to be celebrated) that part of their identity used to be. For instance Pastoral, on sauna sex in Soho versus having a suburb boyfriend, seems rather more in the confirming stereotype area than breaking the mould.
October 13, 2019
an absolute gem. I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved it; I just hope I’ll find more poetry like this.
being in love with you is fucking awful
cause one day you’ll stop breathing
in this grey light you already look dead
but then you smile thank fuck
what are you dreaming about baby wake up
tell me if the word soul still means anything
being in love with you is fucking awful
cause one day you’ll stop breathing
in this grey light you already look dead
but then you smile thank fuck
what are you dreaming about baby wake up
tell me if the word soul still means anything
April 5, 2018
I hugely admire a book that can be so brazenly sexual and plunder the depths of personal experience to tease out meanings that are profound and revelatory. Richard Scott’s book of poetry “Soho� demonstrates a full frontal engagement with queer experience while vigorously searching for a gay lineage and history to connect to. In its opening poem 'Public Library, 1998' the poet performs an Orton-Halliwell stunt of defacing library books to insert the “COCK� and gayness into literature as well as highlighting queer subtext. The final long poem ‘Oh My Soho!� documents a search for that history in the present-day manifestation of a queer community that feels in some was disconnected from its past. There’s a potent anger in how “We’re a people robbed of ancestors � they were stolen, hooded, from us� through stigmatisation and death by criminalization and disease, but also how reformed queer identity has become: “We, too, are not immune to this shameful progress; us homos are no longer revolting!� The double meaning of this line is blistering in its recognition of progress, but at the expense of behaviour which has been sanitised by heteronormative practices and a lack of political engagement. Scott seamlessly treads between the personal and political to create poetry that burns hot pink. This poetry gripped me, turned me on, made me teary-eyed and left me grinning.
Read my full
Read my full
August 12, 2022
I was wondering about the lurid pink cover, but then it seems the Faber & Faber poetry series favours this classically simple design with an eclectic colour palette. Still, why give the Richard Scott collection the pink cover?
Imagine the poor kid wandering into a bookstore looking for a respectable poetry collection to buy. Going to the counter with this clutched in your hand is the equivalent of holding a burning brand over your head, illuminating that: ‘I am GAY!�
Then again, you’re unlikely to find ‘Soho� in any mainstream bookshop in South Africa; maybe at a specialist store, if you’re lucky. I’ve also noticed that a lot of poetry is unavailable in e-book versions. So, the genre really seems to have its work cut out to get noticed and ordinary readers interested.
Which is a great pity, not to mention frustrating, because ‘Soho� in particular is so thematically rich, and tackles a diverse range of subjects, many of them skirted around by mainstream gay literature because they are such trigger points, especially in the current climate of right-wing paranoia that has seemingly engulfed the entire rational world.
This is a real firebrand of a book; any casual reader will learn a lot about gay history and agitprop. And the usual obsessions with love, lust, youth, and physical perfection, which results in some of the best, most disturbing, and visceral, poems. Here I am thinking of the likes of [even if you fuck me all vanilla in], which concludes with the immortal line: “� we are still dangerous faggots�.
There is even a poem called ‘in the style of Richard scott�. And the beginning of ‘Admission� addresses a key issue head-on:
he asks if my poems are authentic
do I have any experience in the matter
and by this he means abuse
and by this he means have I been a victim
I tell him the truth he talks to cover my silence
That tightrope combination of truth/silence is at the heart of the bleakest of these poems, the ones that speak directly to the greatest damage inflicted (whether by others, strangers or loved ones, or the damage we do to ourselves, be it institutional/societal or psychological/pathological).
I urge readers of ‘Soho� to look up Andrew Howdle’s incisive review, who debates the thorny issue of ‘truth� in his reading of the opening poem ‘Public Library, 1998�. Here Scott depicts the graphic (and gleeful) defacing of a copy of the ‘Golden Treasury of Verse� for effacing gay issues.
However, Howdle points out this is the revised 1994 edition, and not the sniffy Victorian one. (My own take on this is that the main concern of the poem is transgression and marginalisation, as symbolised by the act of defacement, which is done sneakily in the borders of the text itself.)
It is an old sawhorse that no two readers are alike, or that no two readers will have a similar reading experience. This is doubly true of poetry, I think, due mainly to its highly compressed nature. I have read entire volumes of verse where not a single poem spoke to me on a personal level. More common is my experience with ‘Soho�, where some poems made my jaw drop, while my reaction to others was a polite ‘meh�.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the collection is overshadowed by the monster that is ‘Oh my Soho!�, singlehandedly the best piece of writing I have read all year. Faber & Faber has a YouTube video of Scott narrating the poem in the actual locations he writes about. Scott is not the greatest spoken interpreter of his own work. He comes across as a bearded cherubic priest narrating a Sunday sermon.
However, perversely this adds such a gravitas to the epic poem, which is as much a history lesson as it is a lament and celebration of a bygone age (I was reminded of by Samuel R. Delany, which depicts the gentrification of Times Square in New York City). And watching the Faber & Faber video of Scott, I wondered what on earth the area’s tourist authority must think!?
Eros� crosshairs, queer angel atop the meat rack of
Cleveland Street. Eros wants me cum-crazy, boshed on lust,
but I need a clear head for this trip. I am to be homo-historian �
mean to turn Biogrope to biography, foreskin to forebearer.
Oh my Soho,
let me linger out tonight. I have rainbow warriors to exhume �
Imagine the poor kid wandering into a bookstore looking for a respectable poetry collection to buy. Going to the counter with this clutched in your hand is the equivalent of holding a burning brand over your head, illuminating that: ‘I am GAY!�
Then again, you’re unlikely to find ‘Soho� in any mainstream bookshop in South Africa; maybe at a specialist store, if you’re lucky. I’ve also noticed that a lot of poetry is unavailable in e-book versions. So, the genre really seems to have its work cut out to get noticed and ordinary readers interested.
Which is a great pity, not to mention frustrating, because ‘Soho� in particular is so thematically rich, and tackles a diverse range of subjects, many of them skirted around by mainstream gay literature because they are such trigger points, especially in the current climate of right-wing paranoia that has seemingly engulfed the entire rational world.
This is a real firebrand of a book; any casual reader will learn a lot about gay history and agitprop. And the usual obsessions with love, lust, youth, and physical perfection, which results in some of the best, most disturbing, and visceral, poems. Here I am thinking of the likes of [even if you fuck me all vanilla in], which concludes with the immortal line: “� we are still dangerous faggots�.
There is even a poem called ‘in the style of Richard scott�. And the beginning of ‘Admission� addresses a key issue head-on:
he asks if my poems are authentic
do I have any experience in the matter
and by this he means abuse
and by this he means have I been a victim
I tell him the truth he talks to cover my silence
That tightrope combination of truth/silence is at the heart of the bleakest of these poems, the ones that speak directly to the greatest damage inflicted (whether by others, strangers or loved ones, or the damage we do to ourselves, be it institutional/societal or psychological/pathological).
I urge readers of ‘Soho� to look up Andrew Howdle’s incisive review, who debates the thorny issue of ‘truth� in his reading of the opening poem ‘Public Library, 1998�. Here Scott depicts the graphic (and gleeful) defacing of a copy of the ‘Golden Treasury of Verse� for effacing gay issues.
However, Howdle points out this is the revised 1994 edition, and not the sniffy Victorian one. (My own take on this is that the main concern of the poem is transgression and marginalisation, as symbolised by the act of defacement, which is done sneakily in the borders of the text itself.)
It is an old sawhorse that no two readers are alike, or that no two readers will have a similar reading experience. This is doubly true of poetry, I think, due mainly to its highly compressed nature. I have read entire volumes of verse where not a single poem spoke to me on a personal level. More common is my experience with ‘Soho�, where some poems made my jaw drop, while my reaction to others was a polite ‘meh�.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the collection is overshadowed by the monster that is ‘Oh my Soho!�, singlehandedly the best piece of writing I have read all year. Faber & Faber has a YouTube video of Scott narrating the poem in the actual locations he writes about. Scott is not the greatest spoken interpreter of his own work. He comes across as a bearded cherubic priest narrating a Sunday sermon.
However, perversely this adds such a gravitas to the epic poem, which is as much a history lesson as it is a lament and celebration of a bygone age (I was reminded of by Samuel R. Delany, which depicts the gentrification of Times Square in New York City). And watching the Faber & Faber video of Scott, I wondered what on earth the area’s tourist authority must think!?
Eros� crosshairs, queer angel atop the meat rack of
Cleveland Street. Eros wants me cum-crazy, boshed on lust,
but I need a clear head for this trip. I am to be homo-historian �
mean to turn Biogrope to biography, foreskin to forebearer.
Oh my Soho,
let me linger out tonight. I have rainbow warriors to exhume �
May 17, 2020
I thought I would read a few poems last night but instead read 14. My meandering walk with this book the following afternoon led me to finish it. Richard Scott is so incredibly open in his writing. I'm glad I bought my own copy of this so I could mark the ones that stood out. I marked the opening page called "Public Library, 1998" where Scott could not find a gay poem in the library so he penned "Cock" in he margin of a book. And with many more favorite-marked-poems in between, I finally marked the 10-page "Oh My Soho" that concludes the book.
Sections include: Admission, Love Poems, Shame and Soho.
"Public Library, 1998" precedes all of this. After not finding a gay poem, and then writing "Cock" in the margin, he sees the hidden message(s):
Then I see it - nestled like a mushroom in moss, tongue-true and vaunt - a queer subtext
an my pen becomes an indigo highlighter inking up what the editor could not, would not
Admission starts with the simple early admission in life of loving boys ("le jardin secret"). But rape soon follows ("crocodile"). Sexual fun with "plug" is followed by "four arias" that expound on burgeoning feelings.
follow me home and I will open my
walls for you tonight I want
your lidless eye your pearly hum
"Reportage" deals with the reality that knowing that hatred for these acts could let defiant "Men I went to school with" pouring petrol over him and using a Zippo.
A playground "sandcastles" has interesting alternate endings that quickly explore all the possibilities.
"Fishmonger" lets him enter the van "if my parents were out". No fish is bought, only eggs. The short experience is described:
He fed me prawns to calm me,
wiped the brine from my lips -
let me try my first razor clam
unzipped from its pale hard shell,
the tip - soft and white and saline.
My marks pick up frequency as this book continues.
Even depression is beautifully explored in "sertraline 50 mg"
its raining in my heart
what does that even mean and
why am I so sad
all the fucking time
...
my heart's a puddle
middle class boys like me
haven't known tragedy
Later, in the mid Love Poem section, is one of my favorite verses:
the boy is in love but he has no idea of what he loves
none of us have ever known what we're doing
homos each one of us opaque as rose
quartz I am so lost
Here is some more open honesty later in the Shame section of the book:
people say shit like it gets better
but what they mean is there'll always be haters
only you'll be older
The "Oh My Soho" finale is epic.
Oh my Soho,
spin me back to your parades, your protests, your pride -
when a rainbow flag was a sigil and a cocktail was flaming!
Oh my Soho,
Was there ever an invulnerable queer body?
I re-read every single poem immediately after its first reading. And I am enjoying another reading as I write this review.
Is it obvious I loved this?
Sections include: Admission, Love Poems, Shame and Soho.
"Public Library, 1998" precedes all of this. After not finding a gay poem, and then writing "Cock" in the margin, he sees the hidden message(s):
Then I see it - nestled like a mushroom in moss, tongue-true and vaunt - a queer subtext
an my pen becomes an indigo highlighter inking up what the editor could not, would not
Admission starts with the simple early admission in life of loving boys ("le jardin secret"). But rape soon follows ("crocodile"). Sexual fun with "plug" is followed by "four arias" that expound on burgeoning feelings.
follow me home and I will open my
walls for you tonight I want
your lidless eye your pearly hum
"Reportage" deals with the reality that knowing that hatred for these acts could let defiant "Men I went to school with" pouring petrol over him and using a Zippo.
A playground "sandcastles" has interesting alternate endings that quickly explore all the possibilities.
"Fishmonger" lets him enter the van "if my parents were out". No fish is bought, only eggs. The short experience is described:
He fed me prawns to calm me,
wiped the brine from my lips -
let me try my first razor clam
unzipped from its pale hard shell,
the tip - soft and white and saline.
My marks pick up frequency as this book continues.
Even depression is beautifully explored in "sertraline 50 mg"
its raining in my heart
what does that even mean and
why am I so sad
all the fucking time
...
my heart's a puddle
middle class boys like me
haven't known tragedy
Later, in the mid Love Poem section, is one of my favorite verses:
the boy is in love but he has no idea of what he loves
none of us have ever known what we're doing
homos each one of us opaque as rose
quartz I am so lost
Here is some more open honesty later in the Shame section of the book:
people say shit like it gets better
but what they mean is there'll always be haters
only you'll be older
The "Oh My Soho" finale is epic.
Oh my Soho,
spin me back to your parades, your protests, your pride -
when a rainbow flag was a sigil and a cocktail was flaming!
Oh my Soho,
Was there ever an invulnerable queer body?
I re-read every single poem immediately after its first reading. And I am enjoying another reading as I write this review.
Is it obvious I loved this?
January 16, 2019
When I saw him speak at the Faber Spring Party last year, Scott read two of the amazingly intimate poems from this upcoming collection. One, “cover-boys,� is about top-shelf gay porn and what became of the models; the other, “museum,� is, on the face of it, about mutilated sculptures of male bodies in the Athens archaeological museum, but also, more generally, about “the vulnerability of / queer bodies.� If you appreciate the erotic verse of Mark Doty, Andrew McMillan and Danez Smith, you need to pick this up immediately. A warning that a few of the poems are pretty disturbing as they seem to portray the young Scott in situations of pedophiliac abuse. The narrator anticipates such horrified reactions in “Admission,� in which he regrets telling a friend the truth about his past, wishing he could still be liked for himself, rather than perceived as damaged. Scott also channels Verlaine in a central section of gritty love poems and Whitman in the final, multi-part “Oh My Soho!� On the page these poems aren’t quite as powerful as they were when read aloud, so I would highly recommend seeing him do a live reading if you have the chance.
Some favorite lines (from “Oh My Soho!�):
“there is more to queerness than just trans-historical // bum-fun�
“I // am like you[,] my Soho. I’m chock-full of shame, riven with dark man- / jostling alleyways, a treasure map of buried trauma.�
Some favorite lines (from “Oh My Soho!�):
“there is more to queerness than just trans-historical // bum-fun�
“I // am like you[,] my Soho. I’m chock-full of shame, riven with dark man- / jostling alleyways, a treasure map of buried trauma.�
November 1, 2018
Richard Scott's Soho (2018) is a crafty book of poems, carefully selective of its line and language type, and always unforgiving in his relentless reflection on past and present times. Scott's collection is nostalgic more than its claim to encapsulate the profoundness of trauma. He traverses a long-lost world of public cruising, affect without the digital, and even draws upon theories and ideologies from the gay liberation period--all to the effect of reiterating, renumerating, recovering, and/or redrawing the boundaries of queer thought in a period when "no one is screaming - we are dancing through the slaughter / as your name pulses from within the bass" ("Oh My Soho!" pp. 69-78).
Much as the collection reflects on the carnality and experimental freedoms of past cultures, Scott's semi-eponymous poem emerges as a polemic deriding the "wheel of pansy progress," how it has effectively slowed (or stopped), and how he longs (he demands!) to hear the voice (of Leo Bersani? Foucault? Whitman? Sedgwick? all cultural thinkers he calls upon to scaffold his queer upbringing) "calling us home to reseed History". I'm dubious of his construct of capital "H" history in order to compel a more formal recognition of queer history.
To be sure, his collection does much heavy lifting in an effort to compel this understanding of trans-historical community. Yet he derides queers of my generation for effectively turning away from the hallowed halls of our age-old ancestors--as we have, he might suggest, stagnated in the waters of gay-rights normativity. I am suspicious of this call to "reseed History" because queer historians do not yank the sexual impulse or pull out the rug from sex throughout history (see the incredible work by George Chauncy, Martin Duberman, and Samuel R. Delany, for example).
His poetic manifesto is both humourous and frustrating, for it relishes the wonders of liberation thinking at a time marked by systemic indifference--and it fails to provide any artistic alternative other replenshing "the feeling uncanny weightlessness / smile nod sneer pushing you further into the / steam maze until you come to a man prostrate / waiting for you and something like vertigo / pushes you onto him inside him and you / move fast and rough like a kid on a swing" ("legs straight as you go forward knees," p. 59).
What we need, more than the grief of generational difference, is a sexual politic that is more than historical, more than literary in its intent. Community is built on affection and understanding; we cannot flourish in a process of loss. We have lost much, as a community, but that is only a portion of the history we are making. Scott would benefit reading the queer optimists (like José Esteban Muñoz and Sarah Ahmed) to remember what is good in our queerness, to push beyond the bounds of his derivative perspective on community and return to life the vivacious energy we all have if only we think it and bring it into the world. Soho receives four stars for its resounding reflection on queer history, its vision of community, and its delightful dance through queer love and intimacy.
Much as the collection reflects on the carnality and experimental freedoms of past cultures, Scott's semi-eponymous poem emerges as a polemic deriding the "wheel of pansy progress," how it has effectively slowed (or stopped), and how he longs (he demands!) to hear the voice (of Leo Bersani? Foucault? Whitman? Sedgwick? all cultural thinkers he calls upon to scaffold his queer upbringing) "calling us home to reseed History". I'm dubious of his construct of capital "H" history in order to compel a more formal recognition of queer history.
To be sure, his collection does much heavy lifting in an effort to compel this understanding of trans-historical community. Yet he derides queers of my generation for effectively turning away from the hallowed halls of our age-old ancestors--as we have, he might suggest, stagnated in the waters of gay-rights normativity. I am suspicious of this call to "reseed History" because queer historians do not yank the sexual impulse or pull out the rug from sex throughout history (see the incredible work by George Chauncy, Martin Duberman, and Samuel R. Delany, for example).
His poetic manifesto is both humourous and frustrating, for it relishes the wonders of liberation thinking at a time marked by systemic indifference--and it fails to provide any artistic alternative other replenshing "the feeling uncanny weightlessness / smile nod sneer pushing you further into the / steam maze until you come to a man prostrate / waiting for you and something like vertigo / pushes you onto him inside him and you / move fast and rough like a kid on a swing" ("legs straight as you go forward knees," p. 59).
What we need, more than the grief of generational difference, is a sexual politic that is more than historical, more than literary in its intent. Community is built on affection and understanding; we cannot flourish in a process of loss. We have lost much, as a community, but that is only a portion of the history we are making. Scott would benefit reading the queer optimists (like José Esteban Muñoz and Sarah Ahmed) to remember what is good in our queerness, to push beyond the bounds of his derivative perspective on community and return to life the vivacious energy we all have if only we think it and bring it into the world. Soho receives four stars for its resounding reflection on queer history, its vision of community, and its delightful dance through queer love and intimacy.
February 14, 2023
Soho is a disturbing book because of the subject matter and issues with the poetry. Reviews of
Soho invariably skim over the surface of the poems and the book invites reviewers to do so for Scott writes with exuberance, in a blaze of glory against gay shame. There are some good poems, like "crocodile", where the snappy lines depict the shame and trauma of male rape. But the confessional mode, taken at face value by readers/reviewers, is terribly suspect. The first poem, for example, catches the eye of most. It describes how a 17-18 year old Scott, in 1998, sat in a public library and drew sexual graffiti in Palgrave's "The Golden Treasury", as a protest against the absence of gay poetry. Writing "COCK" is a an act of "filthy" defiance, as Scott puts the matter in a poetry review for Ambit . But how really defiant is an act that never happened? Scott draws an anal cartoon against Larkin. Larkin (b.1922)? So, the volume being read by Scott is the 1994 update, not the pompous Victorian original. And the 1994 volume includes a poem about gay lovers by Thom Gunn. It even has a couplet by Anne Stevenson that refers to Auden and Isherwood seeking male trade in Berlin. These facts turn Scott's insistence that there were no gay poems in the library into an untruth. Also, Scott makes great play out of finding a queer subtext (oral sex) in "tongue true and vaunt", a reference to Hopkin's poem to the bugler boy on his first communion. This is not in Palgrave. Simply put, this piece of confessionalism is make believe. Scott admits elsewhere that "cover boys" is not true-- it is an "artifice" made from Googling gay porn on the internet. Not true? That is supposedly the strength of Soho , its searing honesty. We now have "faux-confessionalism", which is a catchy label being used for Scott, but as suspect as post-truth. The poems in Soho are written with verve, that is true. The indulgent similes and metaphors, however, reduce the emotional impact of many poems. The high point is "Soho", the final sequence, where Scott writes a Whitmanesque hymn to gay shame and gay history. The low point is the penultimate sequence, "Shame," which reads like Theory bunged into free verse. Ultimately, I found Soho disturbing for all the wrong reasons.
Soho invariably skim over the surface of the poems and the book invites reviewers to do so for Scott writes with exuberance, in a blaze of glory against gay shame. There are some good poems, like "crocodile", where the snappy lines depict the shame and trauma of male rape. But the confessional mode, taken at face value by readers/reviewers, is terribly suspect. The first poem, for example, catches the eye of most. It describes how a 17-18 year old Scott, in 1998, sat in a public library and drew sexual graffiti in Palgrave's "The Golden Treasury", as a protest against the absence of gay poetry. Writing "COCK" is a an act of "filthy" defiance, as Scott puts the matter in a poetry review for Ambit . But how really defiant is an act that never happened? Scott draws an anal cartoon against Larkin. Larkin (b.1922)? So, the volume being read by Scott is the 1994 update, not the pompous Victorian original. And the 1994 volume includes a poem about gay lovers by Thom Gunn. It even has a couplet by Anne Stevenson that refers to Auden and Isherwood seeking male trade in Berlin. These facts turn Scott's insistence that there were no gay poems in the library into an untruth. Also, Scott makes great play out of finding a queer subtext (oral sex) in "tongue true and vaunt", a reference to Hopkin's poem to the bugler boy on his first communion. This is not in Palgrave. Simply put, this piece of confessionalism is make believe. Scott admits elsewhere that "cover boys" is not true-- it is an "artifice" made from Googling gay porn on the internet. Not true? That is supposedly the strength of Soho , its searing honesty. We now have "faux-confessionalism", which is a catchy label being used for Scott, but as suspect as post-truth. The poems in Soho are written with verve, that is true. The indulgent similes and metaphors, however, reduce the emotional impact of many poems. The high point is "Soho", the final sequence, where Scott writes a Whitmanesque hymn to gay shame and gay history. The low point is the penultimate sequence, "Shame," which reads like Theory bunged into free verse. Ultimately, I found Soho disturbing for all the wrong reasons.
March 25, 2019
The opening poem, Public Library 1998, describes a young man trying to find queer literature. This is a central concern for the whole collection: the erasure of queer voices, and the poet’s ongoing conversation with queer literature. Public Library 1998 is also typical of the rest of the collection in its embrasure of eroticism and the realities of the body. As the narrator of the poem searches a poetry collection for queer content he doodles biro boys: “One biro-boy rubs his hard-on against the body of a // sonnet, another bares his hole beside some Larkin.� Richard Scott’s voice is consistently frank, but also mischievous: poetry shouldn’t take itself too seriously. While a poem may express your most authentic self, it’s also perfectly OK to write “COCK� in the margins.
This collection isn’t perfect, but I admire it hugely. Scott’s voice is very impressive: he has a clear command of the language and structure of poetry, playing effectively with line-breaks and run-on sentences to create a sense of urgency and emotion. He is also very aware of the poets who come before him, and that he is part of a long dialogue. His poetry is tapestry of references to other poets: Whitman, Rilke, Verlaine, Sedgwick. This creates a richness and weight. It’s brave to refer to other poets so directly, because the poet always risks being compared unfavourably to them, but Scott’s work can stand up to this kind of scrutiny. It has the weight to ask to be considered alongside poets like Whitman or Verlaine.
The third poem in the collection, Crocodile, is one of my favourites. Told without punctuation, it compares the crocodile to a sexual predator, and, in few lines, manages to capture the confusion of someone who has experienced sexual assault, and the intersections between assault and sexuality.
though I was not the same I
was carrion bleeding into the silt
and didn’t I wear those wounds
well pity me the boy who cried
crocodile I have these moments when I
know I wanted it asked for it even
to be special to be scarred
In these few lines, Scott captures such an onslaught of emotions and confusion, as well as demonstrating his assured use of enjambment to keep the reader enthralled by the story he is telling. I also hugely admired his poem Museum, which is a response to Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo. Both poems describe the beauty of Apollo’s torso, but Scott captures the eroticism of the naked torso, saying
towards the reliquary
of your earth-
scarred sternum I
kiss your chiselled
flesh and find you
warm tasting of
sand and lime
This is also one of many poems in which Scott embraces his identity as a gay man, and the ways in which others in society try to shame him for being who he is. One of the core concerns of this book is queer identity, and the ways in which gay men have been consistently abused and humiliated. Scott refuses to find any of his desires negative or humiliating, but focuses on their eroticism, and the ways in which he finds intimacy, pleasure, and ultimately love. In Museum he response to the last line of Rilke’s poem “You must change your life�, by saying
for the longest
time people told me
I must change my life
but this is my life
this adoration of
men this worship of
those whom the
world has deemed
broken just as
you gave your
body to the earth
so have I given
mine to this [...]
Though Scott does deal with tragic elements of queer history, particularly in his poem “Oh my Soho�, which touches on the history of Soho, and on gay history more generally, his work is also very joyful. He writes about the pleasure of intimacy, the joy of embracing yourself fully, and the delight of sexual pleasure. In his poem [legs straight as you go forward knees] he compares a child on a swing to sleeping with a stranger, capturing the strange wild joy of it as he writes
[...] until you come to a man prostrate
waiting for you and something like vertigo
pushes you onto him inside him and you
move fast and rough like a kid on a swing
This collection could be “confessional� poetry, and Scott deals with this idea directly, particularly the fact that people forget the narrator of a poem is not always the poet. In two poems early in the collectiom, Permissions and Admissions, he talks about people asking whether certain elements of his poems have really happened to him, and implicitly asks the reader whether it matters. If a poem work, and reads authentically, does it matter if it is “true�? What is “the truth� in the context of poetry, anyway?
The section “Verlaine in Soho� didn’t work for me as well as the rest of this collection. It consists of poems that loosely respond to some of Verlaine’s love poems, but I felt the responses were too casual, as though Scott hadn’t truly figured out what he was trying to do. This collection also only deals with the experience of gay men, not of queer people as a whole. Women (and lesbians) are entirely absent. I can forgive Scott this because his work doesn’t try to speak for the whole community: it’s a portrait of one particular aspect of gay culture, gay literature, and Soho specifically. However, in a book that talks about erasure, the complete lack of other kinds of queer culture is notable.
However, Scott’s work constantly felt both refreshing and compelling to me, and I enjoyed it wholly, despite shortcomings. It’s an antidote to collections that feel academic, inaccessible, and are afraid to touch on the realities of the body. Despite Scott’s conscious response to many other poets, his work feel loose and easy to grasp, as well as cheeky and funny: not dry and restrained like some academic poets I can think of. He pulls off a wonderful balancing act by writing both about other queer poets, and creating something that feels new and unique.
This collection isn’t perfect, but I admire it hugely. Scott’s voice is very impressive: he has a clear command of the language and structure of poetry, playing effectively with line-breaks and run-on sentences to create a sense of urgency and emotion. He is also very aware of the poets who come before him, and that he is part of a long dialogue. His poetry is tapestry of references to other poets: Whitman, Rilke, Verlaine, Sedgwick. This creates a richness and weight. It’s brave to refer to other poets so directly, because the poet always risks being compared unfavourably to them, but Scott’s work can stand up to this kind of scrutiny. It has the weight to ask to be considered alongside poets like Whitman or Verlaine.
The third poem in the collection, Crocodile, is one of my favourites. Told without punctuation, it compares the crocodile to a sexual predator, and, in few lines, manages to capture the confusion of someone who has experienced sexual assault, and the intersections between assault and sexuality.
though I was not the same I
was carrion bleeding into the silt
and didn’t I wear those wounds
well pity me the boy who cried
crocodile I have these moments when I
know I wanted it asked for it even
to be special to be scarred
In these few lines, Scott captures such an onslaught of emotions and confusion, as well as demonstrating his assured use of enjambment to keep the reader enthralled by the story he is telling. I also hugely admired his poem Museum, which is a response to Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo. Both poems describe the beauty of Apollo’s torso, but Scott captures the eroticism of the naked torso, saying
towards the reliquary
of your earth-
scarred sternum I
kiss your chiselled
flesh and find you
warm tasting of
sand and lime
This is also one of many poems in which Scott embraces his identity as a gay man, and the ways in which others in society try to shame him for being who he is. One of the core concerns of this book is queer identity, and the ways in which gay men have been consistently abused and humiliated. Scott refuses to find any of his desires negative or humiliating, but focuses on their eroticism, and the ways in which he finds intimacy, pleasure, and ultimately love. In Museum he response to the last line of Rilke’s poem “You must change your life�, by saying
for the longest
time people told me
I must change my life
but this is my life
this adoration of
men this worship of
those whom the
world has deemed
broken just as
you gave your
body to the earth
so have I given
mine to this [...]
Though Scott does deal with tragic elements of queer history, particularly in his poem “Oh my Soho�, which touches on the history of Soho, and on gay history more generally, his work is also very joyful. He writes about the pleasure of intimacy, the joy of embracing yourself fully, and the delight of sexual pleasure. In his poem [legs straight as you go forward knees] he compares a child on a swing to sleeping with a stranger, capturing the strange wild joy of it as he writes
[...] until you come to a man prostrate
waiting for you and something like vertigo
pushes you onto him inside him and you
move fast and rough like a kid on a swing
This collection could be “confessional� poetry, and Scott deals with this idea directly, particularly the fact that people forget the narrator of a poem is not always the poet. In two poems early in the collectiom, Permissions and Admissions, he talks about people asking whether certain elements of his poems have really happened to him, and implicitly asks the reader whether it matters. If a poem work, and reads authentically, does it matter if it is “true�? What is “the truth� in the context of poetry, anyway?
The section “Verlaine in Soho� didn’t work for me as well as the rest of this collection. It consists of poems that loosely respond to some of Verlaine’s love poems, but I felt the responses were too casual, as though Scott hadn’t truly figured out what he was trying to do. This collection also only deals with the experience of gay men, not of queer people as a whole. Women (and lesbians) are entirely absent. I can forgive Scott this because his work doesn’t try to speak for the whole community: it’s a portrait of one particular aspect of gay culture, gay literature, and Soho specifically. However, in a book that talks about erasure, the complete lack of other kinds of queer culture is notable.
However, Scott’s work constantly felt both refreshing and compelling to me, and I enjoyed it wholly, despite shortcomings. It’s an antidote to collections that feel academic, inaccessible, and are afraid to touch on the realities of the body. Despite Scott’s conscious response to many other poets, his work feel loose and easy to grasp, as well as cheeky and funny: not dry and restrained like some academic poets I can think of. He pulls off a wonderful balancing act by writing both about other queer poets, and creating something that feels new and unique.
June 22, 2018
It may well be my favourite single volume of poetry.
This extraordinarily vivid collection of poems is so so so good. It's taut, and graphic; the verse never feels impenetrable. It feels confessional, but there's always something that draws the words up beyond the single experience. Sometimes crude, often romantic, occasionally tragic, Scott conjures history and bodies in all their manifestations. Bodies dancing, bodies in recovery, bodies entwined. Rarely have I seen queerness engaged with so overtly, so unapologetically, but done with such skill.
I adored it. I want to read it again, sat in Soho Square.
This extraordinarily vivid collection of poems is so so so good. It's taut, and graphic; the verse never feels impenetrable. It feels confessional, but there's always something that draws the words up beyond the single experience. Sometimes crude, often romantic, occasionally tragic, Scott conjures history and bodies in all their manifestations. Bodies dancing, bodies in recovery, bodies entwined. Rarely have I seen queerness engaged with so overtly, so unapologetically, but done with such skill.
I adored it. I want to read it again, sat in Soho Square.
November 5, 2023
❤️an absolute masterpiece
it’s raining in my heart
what does that even mean and
why am I so sad
all the fucking time
still it pours on
the slate roofs are black
the gardens a swamp
droplets on the pavement
such white noise is
almost calming and
how come my head’s cloud and
my heart’s a puddle
middle class boys like me
haven’t known tragedy
and yet this dark rain
saturating my heart
it’s raining in my heart
what does that even mean and
why am I so sad
all the fucking time
still it pours on
the slate roofs are black
the gardens a swamp
droplets on the pavement
such white noise is
almost calming and
how come my head’s cloud and
my heart’s a puddle
middle class boys like me
haven’t known tragedy
and yet this dark rain
saturating my heart
June 30, 2024
Freebie from Aesop’s pop up library on Lexington St for Pride. Man behind the till said, “SOHO! Good choice. We are in SOHO.� How astute! Read over a mediocre coffee in a cafe off Carnaby, then against a brick wall on Berwick St, then on old white sheets, as I recovered from the kind of hangover chill that can only originate from vodka and late-night kisses. Call it homage.
Soho is completely alive: thrumming with joy, trauma, ancestry, and sex. We are taken from the contemporary to a reimagining of traditional love poetry. Scott then breaks himself down in devastating examinations of shame, which makes the final section - an urban and historical journey of identity - all the more exhilarating. What a consistently brilliant collection.
“Oh my Soho, my teaming Petri dish, my ER, my graveyard!�
Soho is completely alive: thrumming with joy, trauma, ancestry, and sex. We are taken from the contemporary to a reimagining of traditional love poetry. Scott then breaks himself down in devastating examinations of shame, which makes the final section - an urban and historical journey of identity - all the more exhilarating. What a consistently brilliant collection.
“Oh my Soho, my teaming Petri dish, my ER, my graveyard!�
October 22, 2019
“Oh my Soho,
my tongue’s untied by trauma! We’re a people robbed of
ancestors � they were stolen, hooded, from us.�
my tongue’s untied by trauma! We’re a people robbed of
ancestors � they were stolen, hooded, from us.�
August 9, 2019
This is the first poetry book I’ve properly read and I did enjoy it a lot. However, it is super graphic in places and deals with some traumatic and difficult subjects (rape, abuse) so I’d recommend looking into it before reading if you’re worried about those kinds of subjects. Aside from this, I thought it was really beautifully written and made me feel things.
December 15, 2018
The sort of collection that makes you want to read moe poetry. It speaks toa tradition and explodes it. It's a song from the past and the future. Erotic (but not in some grim cheesecloth or porntatsic way) and mournful and angry and sad and all of it.
June 9, 2020
Listened to via audiobook.
December 16, 2024
seminal queer poetry book
May 28, 2021
Parlare di poesia trovo non sia mai facile, perché le poesie sono vite condensate che richiedono al lettore almeno due passaggi impegnativi: entrare in quella complessità contratta e uscirne dopo aver disteso le pieghe, dopo aver spiegato, appunto, a sé stessi quella complessità. La lettura di “Soho� di Richard Scott, raccolta di poesie in un qualche modo intimamente collegate al quartiere londinese � Soho, appunto �, noto per essere in particolare il quartiere gay di Londra, mi ha portato innanzitutto a chiedermi che cosa è poesia, oggi; domanda a cui non mi sento di rispondere, non mi sento cioè di delineare dei confini, di chiudere questa splendida arte nella gabbia di una definizione troppo stretta. E poi, nell’atto di interpretare quella complessità, riflessa nelle sue poesie, Scott, in modo prepotente e sempre onesto, mi ha fatto esperire la sua vita senza mediazioni, così, direttamente, senza protezioni.
Leggendo “Soho� non ho potuto non convincermi del fatto che questa raccolta penso possa rappresentare una risposta alla mancanza di cui Scott ci parla nella prima poesia di questa raccolta � “Public Library, 1998�:
Public Library, 1998
In the library where there is not one gay poem,
not even Cavafy eyeing his grappa-sozzled lads � I
open again the Golden Treasury of Verse and write COCK
in the margin. Ink stains my fingers. Words stretch to
diagrams, birth beards and thighs, shoulders, fourgies.
One biro-boy rubs his hard-on against the body of a
sonnet, another bares his hole beside some Larkin. A blue
sailor spooges over Canto XII. Then I see it � nestled like a
mushroom in moss, tongue-true and vaunt � a queer subtext
and my pen becomes an indigo highlighter inking up what
the editor could not, would not � the violet hour of these
men hidden deep within verse. I underline those that nature,
not the printer, had prick’d out; rimming each delicate
stanza in cerulean, illuminating the readers-to-come�
Quel vuoto non è riempito solo dall’appunto ardito � “CAZZO� � sul margine dell’antologia �Golden Treasury of Verse�, in quella biblioteca pubblica che, nonostante abbia espunto qualunque ‘poesia gay�, è vissuta da esseri umani che lo sono � effettivamente, in questa poesia Richard Scott sembra voler mostrare che, se nei libri della biblioteca non c’� alcun riferimento a ‘poesie gay�, di queste, ben più “vive�, se ne possono ricavare dalla vita vera! �, ma, soprattutto, quel vuoto, Scott lo riempie con le pagine successive della sua raccolta dal titolo “Soho�.
Ora, la poesia di Scott è piena di colori, di carne, di passioni, sporcizia, nudità, di aperture e di chiusure; la sua poesia è esplicita come non potete immaginare, sfacciata e priva di virginali paludamenti letterari: è tutta esposizione. La sua poesia, anche se pare banale dirlo, riflette Scott: i suoi pensieri, le sue emozioni, le sue esperienze. Non immaginatevi assolutamente, quindi, belle rime e versi infiocchettati; non immaginatevi nel modo più assoluto contatti umani espressi in una forma troppo aulica da renderli innaturalmente eterei né dovete immaginarvi scene di vita così edulcorate da rasentare l’irrealtà. La poesia di Scott è vita terrena espressa con la stessa ruvidezza, la stessa polverosità, la stessa impurità della terra. E come accade al contatto con la terra, la poesia di Scott ti sporca, ma ti sporca di quella vita dalle miriadi di tonalità, di quella vita così vivida e non sempre facile; in poche parole: ti sporca di vita vissuta senza che a te arrivi filtrata in qualche modo.
L’intento di Scott, che ho potuto scorgere, infatti, non è quello di far sì che il lettore ricavi pagliuzze d’oro � filtrando le impurità � dalla lettura della sua raccolta, ma è quello di far sentire al lettore com’� la vita quando pagliuzze d’oro e impurità (che impurità non sono davvero) sono frammiste. Quello che Scott fa, in altri termini, è evidenziare «l’ora viola di questi / uomini nascosti nel profondo dei versi», come ricorda appunto in “Public Library, 1998�, mettendo in primis in evidenza la sua ‘ora viola�. Il fine è chiaro: questo palcoscenico in cui Richard Scott ci si dà, gli consente di mostrare, e affermare senza trepidazione né vergogna o pudicizia, che, come scrive in “Reportage�, «anch’io sono nato in questo mondo per avere / lo sporco sulle ginocchia, la saliva di un altro uomo in bocca».
Nel suggerirvene la lettura, faccio appello a qualche editore coraggioso che possa portare questa interessante raccolta di poesie anche qui in Italia. Vi è qualcuno in ascolto?
Leggendo “Soho� non ho potuto non convincermi del fatto che questa raccolta penso possa rappresentare una risposta alla mancanza di cui Scott ci parla nella prima poesia di questa raccolta � “Public Library, 1998�:
Public Library, 1998
In the library where there is not one gay poem,
not even Cavafy eyeing his grappa-sozzled lads � I
open again the Golden Treasury of Verse and write COCK
in the margin. Ink stains my fingers. Words stretch to
diagrams, birth beards and thighs, shoulders, fourgies.
One biro-boy rubs his hard-on against the body of a
sonnet, another bares his hole beside some Larkin. A blue
sailor spooges over Canto XII. Then I see it � nestled like a
mushroom in moss, tongue-true and vaunt � a queer subtext
and my pen becomes an indigo highlighter inking up what
the editor could not, would not � the violet hour of these
men hidden deep within verse. I underline those that nature,
not the printer, had prick’d out; rimming each delicate
stanza in cerulean, illuminating the readers-to-come�
Quel vuoto non è riempito solo dall’appunto ardito � “CAZZO� � sul margine dell’antologia �Golden Treasury of Verse�, in quella biblioteca pubblica che, nonostante abbia espunto qualunque ‘poesia gay�, è vissuta da esseri umani che lo sono � effettivamente, in questa poesia Richard Scott sembra voler mostrare che, se nei libri della biblioteca non c’� alcun riferimento a ‘poesie gay�, di queste, ben più “vive�, se ne possono ricavare dalla vita vera! �, ma, soprattutto, quel vuoto, Scott lo riempie con le pagine successive della sua raccolta dal titolo “Soho�.
Ora, la poesia di Scott è piena di colori, di carne, di passioni, sporcizia, nudità, di aperture e di chiusure; la sua poesia è esplicita come non potete immaginare, sfacciata e priva di virginali paludamenti letterari: è tutta esposizione. La sua poesia, anche se pare banale dirlo, riflette Scott: i suoi pensieri, le sue emozioni, le sue esperienze. Non immaginatevi assolutamente, quindi, belle rime e versi infiocchettati; non immaginatevi nel modo più assoluto contatti umani espressi in una forma troppo aulica da renderli innaturalmente eterei né dovete immaginarvi scene di vita così edulcorate da rasentare l’irrealtà. La poesia di Scott è vita terrena espressa con la stessa ruvidezza, la stessa polverosità, la stessa impurità della terra. E come accade al contatto con la terra, la poesia di Scott ti sporca, ma ti sporca di quella vita dalle miriadi di tonalità, di quella vita così vivida e non sempre facile; in poche parole: ti sporca di vita vissuta senza che a te arrivi filtrata in qualche modo.
L’intento di Scott, che ho potuto scorgere, infatti, non è quello di far sì che il lettore ricavi pagliuzze d’oro � filtrando le impurità � dalla lettura della sua raccolta, ma è quello di far sentire al lettore com’� la vita quando pagliuzze d’oro e impurità (che impurità non sono davvero) sono frammiste. Quello che Scott fa, in altri termini, è evidenziare «l’ora viola di questi / uomini nascosti nel profondo dei versi», come ricorda appunto in “Public Library, 1998�, mettendo in primis in evidenza la sua ‘ora viola�. Il fine è chiaro: questo palcoscenico in cui Richard Scott ci si dà, gli consente di mostrare, e affermare senza trepidazione né vergogna o pudicizia, che, come scrive in “Reportage�, «anch’io sono nato in questo mondo per avere / lo sporco sulle ginocchia, la saliva di un altro uomo in bocca».
Nel suggerirvene la lettura, faccio appello a qualche editore coraggioso che possa portare questa interessante raccolta di poesie anche qui in Italia. Vi è qualcuno in ascolto?
June 6, 2020
Poetry is often about intimacy, those moments with someone else that will always remain a secret between the people concerned. In this shortlisted collection, Scott is prepared to reveal some of those secrets from his life in this very graphic portrait of gay love. Some of these poems are extremely explicit and his prose feels raw, but they are written by drawing from a deep vein of experience and emotion.
the moon bleeds
light onto the black ash
every branch
in this dismal canopy
rasps indifference
In these very personal poems, run themes of love and sex and it is these encounters, some of which are occasionally disturbing, that have formed his character. I can’t say the subject matter was particularly to my taste, very much not my usual reading material. However, I do need to read out of my comfort zones every now and again. My favourite poem was health and for me, this showed the potential that Scott has as a poet and the power of his language to explore almost any other subjects though his poems. 2.5 stars
the moon bleeds
light onto the black ash
every branch
in this dismal canopy
rasps indifference
In these very personal poems, run themes of love and sex and it is these encounters, some of which are occasionally disturbing, that have formed his character. I can’t say the subject matter was particularly to my taste, very much not my usual reading material. However, I do need to read out of my comfort zones every now and again. My favourite poem was health and for me, this showed the potential that Scott has as a poet and the power of his language to explore almost any other subjects though his poems. 2.5 stars
September 27, 2019
1) Raw
2) Evocative
3) Anguished
Enjoyment: 3
"I am always writing my pamphlet of abuse poems..." -from the poem "Permissions"
I experienced this as an audiobook because it was read by the author.
Scott's uncompromising collection begins with images, senses, and desire, and quickly moves to archive experiences vulnerable, potent, untoward, shocking. It blisters, seethes, and questions a queer existence: what have we been, what have we become? Perhaps his next collection will show us where we go from here.
2) Evocative
3) Anguished
Enjoyment: 3
"I am always writing my pamphlet of abuse poems..." -from the poem "Permissions"
I experienced this as an audiobook because it was read by the author.
Scott's uncompromising collection begins with images, senses, and desire, and quickly moves to archive experiences vulnerable, potent, untoward, shocking. It blisters, seethes, and questions a queer existence: what have we been, what have we become? Perhaps his next collection will show us where we go from here.
February 6, 2019
Absolutely incredible. In turn funny, harrowing and uncomfortable. The poems all complement one another beautifully and come together to create a wonderful, unforgettable collection. Richard Scott writes with such honesty and rawness. I loved so many of the poems individually, but it’s hard not to value ‘Soho� as one singular work: it is powerful and tender and sometimes disturbing, and I loved every single moment of reading it.
May 5, 2018
If a more pulsating, vital and unflinching poetry debut has been published so far this year, then I must have missed it. If one is still to be published, then ‘Soho� sets a hell of a bar for it to clear. Following his award-winning Rialto pamphlet ‘Wound�, published two years ago, Scott emerges with a first collection that immediately establishes him as a visceral and important new talent.
Read
April 17, 2021This was my first reading of a book of poetry in English and, obviously, my experience was very limited by the language barrier; yet, there were times when it clicked and I enjoyed the vulnerability, beauty and sensuality from its verses. I can't rate it right now, but I'll definitely keep it around and reread it.
December 3, 2018
life changingly amazing. YES!
October 4, 2022
The Emperor has no clothes.
June 1, 2023
“was there ever an invulnerable queer body?�
one of the best poetry collections i have ever read.
one of the best poetry collections i have ever read.
May 7, 2021
"legs straight as you go forward knees
bent to pick up speed all those times you
swung so high and thought the taut chain
might buckle and the green park was a paint
smear and each lungful of blue air ozone oh
you didn't need a push could do this all on your
own the backs of your knees bruised scabby
and still this feeling uncanny weightlessness
upon walking into the bathhouse each half-
smile nod sneer pushing you further into the
steam maze until you come to a man prostrate
waiting for you and something like vertigo
pushes you onto him inside him and you
move fast and rough like a kid on a swing"
Scott's assertive poems tilt towards the confessional mode, diving deep into his own lived experience to paint a realistic & unmediated portrait of queerness. There's a slow growing into a realization of "otherness", childhood experiments and abuse. There is a of growing into one's self, claiming a real identity. In punchy poems that move from lust and longing, to cruising and casual sex, to the needs of the body, Scott engages with what it exactly means to be gay.
There is a lot of variety across sections. The first has poems about queer self-acceptance. The second has short pieces all dedicated to Verlaine, almost like first drafts. The third has poems that revolve around shame, its internalization and rejection. The book opens with a poem on queering the margins. It closes to an ode to Soho: a quest for queer ancestry, a reckoning with repressive history, a celebration of close community.
bent to pick up speed all those times you
swung so high and thought the taut chain
might buckle and the green park was a paint
smear and each lungful of blue air ozone oh
you didn't need a push could do this all on your
own the backs of your knees bruised scabby
and still this feeling uncanny weightlessness
upon walking into the bathhouse each half-
smile nod sneer pushing you further into the
steam maze until you come to a man prostrate
waiting for you and something like vertigo
pushes you onto him inside him and you
move fast and rough like a kid on a swing"
Scott's assertive poems tilt towards the confessional mode, diving deep into his own lived experience to paint a realistic & unmediated portrait of queerness. There's a slow growing into a realization of "otherness", childhood experiments and abuse. There is a of growing into one's self, claiming a real identity. In punchy poems that move from lust and longing, to cruising and casual sex, to the needs of the body, Scott engages with what it exactly means to be gay.
There is a lot of variety across sections. The first has poems about queer self-acceptance. The second has short pieces all dedicated to Verlaine, almost like first drafts. The third has poems that revolve around shame, its internalization and rejection. The book opens with a poem on queering the margins. It closes to an ode to Soho: a quest for queer ancestry, a reckoning with repressive history, a celebration of close community.
February 11, 2023
I wasn't as taken by this collection of poetry as many people seem to have been.
I'm kinda torn between wanting to feel more positive about it, and to honour/not dismiss the authors expression and experience.
but to me much of it read as sex and self -obsessed, kinda wanky, cis white gay male stuff.
new malden, and classical references :yawn: both came over to me as evidencing a kinda elitist and privileged perspective. and I guess place it for many within the tradition of acclaimed, middle class, white cis male, 'proper' poetry.
it describes the UK gay male scene kinda well.
I think it says nothing new, but says it well.
I likely would have felt differently about it, and it might have been more radical, if it was written and published in the 80s.
(and/or maybe if the blurb didn't contain so much positive hype for the collection and author).
there were some poems I liked (plug) (dancing bear), and some nice turns of phrase (o my Soho 5).
the writing seemed to eroticise abuse in places in the way it describes some experiences. tho I wondered if this was deliberate? (fishmonger)
the writing also contained some uncomfortably ableist language, and what read like some disability/amputee fetishism (museum).
2.5 🌟
I'm kinda torn between wanting to feel more positive about it, and to honour/not dismiss the authors expression and experience.
but to me much of it read as sex and self -obsessed, kinda wanky, cis white gay male stuff.
new malden, and classical references :yawn: both came over to me as evidencing a kinda elitist and privileged perspective. and I guess place it for many within the tradition of acclaimed, middle class, white cis male, 'proper' poetry.
it describes the UK gay male scene kinda well.
I think it says nothing new, but says it well.
I likely would have felt differently about it, and it might have been more radical, if it was written and published in the 80s.
(and/or maybe if the blurb didn't contain so much positive hype for the collection and author).
there were some poems I liked (plug) (dancing bear), and some nice turns of phrase (o my Soho 5).
the writing seemed to eroticise abuse in places in the way it describes some experiences. tho I wondered if this was deliberate? (fishmonger)
the writing also contained some uncomfortably ableist language, and what read like some disability/amputee fetishism (museum).
2.5 🌟
November 17, 2021
i liked some of the poems very much.
i couldn't understand some of them to be honest
but i think it's a solid collection of poems and they are raw and authentic, beautifully- written.
i have some i saved in my phone (took pics lmao) and i'll reread them when i feel the need for some raw queer poetry
i couldn't understand some of them to be honest
but i think it's a solid collection of poems and they are raw and authentic, beautifully- written.
i have some i saved in my phone (took pics lmao) and i'll reread them when i feel the need for some raw queer poetry
July 22, 2020
This is absolutely fucking excellent
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