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Paperback Book Details
  • 12/2023
  • 9798987887172
  • 72 pages
  • $18.00
Masculinity Parable
Myles Taylor, author

Adult; Poetry; (Market)

“Is gender trash? I mean, yeah, but that’s not the question. The question is, does it need to be? And this is where we start the work.” Myles Taylor’s debut full-length collection explores the concept of a non-toxic masculinity: if it’s possible, if it exists, and if not, how we can build it ourselves. Through the lens of a neurotic working-class transmasculine person, manhood is viewed not quite as an aspiration, but as a curse to be broken through reimagining: masculinity as kitchen / masculinity as glitter / masculinity as sunset / masculinity as service / as city block / as cicada shell / as abundance, relaxation, community, and ability to heal. To transition is to willingly enter a violent lineage, both in terms of violence done by men and violence done to the trans community, and Myles’ poems are engaged in the work of pulling apart, examining, and deciding which pieces of the gendered world are worth keeping.
Reviews
Bradley Trumpfheller

The thing about Myles is that their poems do this thing where they make me think of voices as parts of the body, as solid. In Masculinity Parable, voices keep changing, touching, drowning each other out—the voices of strangers, lovers, workers, futures, selves—like "bundles of string lights caught in my throat," which is to say tangled, lit, somehow more bright for being near to each other. This is a book about transness that knows being trans is about manyness. Masculinity Parable is a generous, funny, and lush account of learning how to allow beauty and terror both, always inside each other, on the bus, at the venue, in your head, and on the clock. I love Myles' poems because they insist, over and over, that the work of all love resides in that allowance, a daily practice of listening to both a thing and its opposite. Good poetry, I think, attunes me more to my own living among others, and this is very good poetry.

Devin Gael Kelly

‘Maybe,’ Myles Taylor writes in this book that navigates gender, masculinity, labor, and capitalism, ‘my heart is literally too fucking big.’ I read that line and smiled wide. And nodded. And felt my own heart beat. This is a book with a big fucking heart, a book that complicates and clarifies what it means to be alive in a world where ‘no human is too good to wax poetic / about an orangepink cloud.’ Myles Taylor holds grief and goodness in the same poetic line. They lament what it means to live without an ‘equity of care’ in a body that deserves such care, and they—at the same time—celebrate a world where healing is still possible, where anything can be made into a dancefloor, where we can all still be surprised by love. This is poetry that really lives. It is poetry that makes me want to live. I needed that, really, and maybe you do, too. Sometimes we have to be reminded of tenderness, especially in a society that systematically removes it from our lives. Masculinity Parable reminds me of tenderness. It does that beautiful work. Read this book and let your heart grow big.

News
12/01/2023
Masculinity Parable Tour!

Myles will be touring to celebrate the release of Masculinity Parable. Tour dates can be found here:

12/2 

2pm  - GBH Outspoken Saturdays

Boston Public Library Newsfeed Cafe, Boston, MA

6pm - The Book Disco w/ QT Library 

Forge Baking Co, Somerville, MA

 

12/5

Book Launch & Conversation with Arianna Monet

Virtual, Game Over Books

 

12/6

8pm - Book Release @ Boston Poetry Slam 

The Cantab Lounge, Cambridge, MA

 

12/9

1pm - EmersonWRITES 

Emerson College, Boston, MA

 

12/11

9pm - The Dirty Gerund

Ralph’s Rock Diner, Worcester, MA

 

12/14

8pm - T4T Readings 

The Model, Allston, MA

 

12/20

Mill City Speaks

Coffee and Cotton, Lowell MA

 

12/22

NJ Renaissance

My Way Cafe, Long Branch, NJ

 

1/6

Bread + Roses Bookstore

Cape Cod, MA

 

1/18

8pm - ProvSlam

AS220, Providence, RI

 

1/20 

2pm - Everyone Has A Voice

Brockton Public Library, Brockton, MA

 

1/27

5pm - Author Signing

Under the Umbrella Bookstore, Salt Lake City, UT

 

1/28

Greenhouse Effect Open Mic

Greenhouse Effect, Salt Lake City, UT

 

1/29

Salt Lake City Slam

Mark of the Beastro, Salt Lake City, UT

 

1/31

FlagSlam

Yogaert, Flagstaff, AZ

 

2/2

5pm - First Fridays Author Signing

Bright Side Bookshop, Flagstaff, AZ

 

2/5

Emerson Poetry Project

Emerson College, Boston, MA

 

2/15

Third Thursdays w/ Yena Sharma Purmasir & Katya Zinn

Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA

Formats
Paperback Book Details
  • 12/2023
  • 9798987887172
  • 72 pages
  • $18.00
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