Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire [Paperback]

T. Cole Rachel (Editor), Rita D. Costello (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2004

This new poetry anthology navigates the rocky waters of teenage sexuality and confusion with insight, clarity, and understanding. The poems were written by adults who keenly remember the turmoil and excitement of their own adolescent sexual explorations but now have the perspective and sense of self that come with growing up. They employ concrete details — reaching across car seats, the electric touch of fingertips — as well as more ephemeral concepts, such as facing desire as powerful as a thunderstorm.

Offering comfort, illumination, and acceptance, the book reflects the nuances and complications of teenage sexuality, and explores the confused joy of it, the bright desire, the shame and isolation, the shock of sexual discovery, and the thrill — or horror — of waking up to a new identity. The poems give teens new insight and new language for dealing with gender issues as a whole.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up - Created with the intent of addressing "what it means to come of age as gay, lesbian, transgender, or…totally confused and freaked out," this rich collection brings together 59 poems replete with GLBT teenage angst, confusion, fear, titillation, and joy. The style of the poetry varies widely from hip-hop rhythm to more classical cadences, and because these selections were penned by adults (some of whom are well-known poets) relating their adolescent experiences, the quality of the writing is above average for the most part. One disappointment, however, is the underrepresentation of the lesbian voice - only about a third of the offerings were written by women. Still, as is seen in these lines from Ron Palmer's "The Logic of Queerness" - "Finally,/I let all the seeds grow, grow, and grow/Until they kept growing and covered me with ivy so strong/And vibrant and unique that it became my reason for living./The seed that began inside me finally taught me to sing" - many of these poems speak to all queer teens and will be a source of inspiration and empowerment for an often misunderstood and estranged population. - Betty S. Evans, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield
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Review

"This is powerful writing by a witness wise beyond his years. The gripping poems are so good that you find yourself wanting the writer to try his hand at everything: films, novels, songs, plays -- they all seem within his reach."

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press/Red Rattle Books (May 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932360174
• ISBN-13: 978-1932360172
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,004,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful collection of poetry, April 19, 2004

By 

Felicia Sullivan (New York, ny United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire (Paperback)

Reviewed by Small Spiral Notebook:

Bend, Don't Shatter is a joyous and heart-breaking collection of poems that examines the complexities of being a gay or lesbian teenager. The voices in these poems are heady with the strength of their newfound feelings, stark in their fear and pain, and beautiful in their depiction of first loves. There are experiences of shame and hurt in these stories, yes, but there is also hope. In "Playing for Love," Amanda R. Evans turns the language of tennis into a reflection on both the emptiness and the always electrifying chance of love: "`love-love' / And still when I say it, the hollowness of that sound / comes back: love as zero, full of possibility, waiting to be filled."

No matter what your sexuality, there is no doubt you will hear the echoes of your own adolescence among these pages-who isn't confused about sex and desire as a teenager? For that matter, who has it all figured out as an adult? For many young people these poems will no doubt be a great comfort, a lifeline out of loneliness and isolation. So much of our young lives are spent struggling with the notion of what it means to be "normal." We want to fit in, but we want to be unique; we want to be "normal" but we know we are greater than that simple label. This book reminds us all of the important fact that there is no such thing-we are each of us great, complex, unique beings, and that is something to celebrate. To that end the collection captures a varied and vivid cacophony of queer voices and stories, defying stereotypes and honoring the terror and wonder of emerging sexuality. More than one poem makes reference to the butterfly as an appropriate symbol for this period of transformation from something unsure and unassuming into something fragile but miraculous. It is not an inappropriate symbol for this book, either-a slim volume that is full of unexpected power and beauty. It is a voice for the too-often voiceless, and we can only hope it inspires a new generation of gay and lesbian poets to, as Gerard Wozek puts it, "dream their voices into the world, / a little wounded, but on fire."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Direct, Honest, and Admirable, December 31, 2004

By 

Dawson Progressive - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire (Paperback)

Great art - and in turn, great literature - often possesses a rare quality, the ability to speak on an innate level to its audience, to make the audience feel as if the artist is speaking about an unspoken, universal quality of our own lives. And although it is difficult to say that the poets and poems of Bend Don't Shatter, are attempting some universal or transcendental quality, what they do - and do admirably well - is speak directly and honestly to the book's audience, all with an empathetic understanding.

Indeed, the editors of this compilation admit that they wanted their book to speak to perhaps those who might be the most vulnerable - sexually confused teens and gay teens. And much like most compilations there are poems that are successful, managing to be tender, introspective and almost hauntingly beautiful, while there are other poems that seem to fall dreadfully on their own faces.

Poems such as Scott Hightower's "Spending the Night," Rane Arroyo's "My Mysterious Body" and Randall Mann's "Elegy for the Hurdler," are definitive highlights to the collection. A poem such as John G. de la Parra, Jr.'s "Courage!" is indicative of a series of poems throughout that tell the young reader to be brave - and most importantly that they should always be themselves.

A poem such as Mick Coccia's "We Are Not Vegetarians," is problematic because it's so enigmatically minimalist that it's difficult to obtain much of a reason as to why it was placed within the collection. Ideally, the attempt is to cover a multitude of emotions and thought on the experience of being young and gay or young and sexually confused, to prove (paraphrasing one of the poets in the collection) that there is more than one [...] truth.

And that is what Bend Don't Shatter manages to do so amazingly well - but the reader should be aware that the book is aimed towards younger readers.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing, eclectic collection of poetry, April 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire (Paperback)

This book is full to the brim with beautiful poems that address the confusion of youth. I found it inspiring to read. Any young person would find it hopeful and may be driven to write about their own feeling because of it. I think this a great book for highschool libraries where young people can find it and know that they are not alone.