Circuit Poems
Written by Steve Weinstein / Walter Holland
01/09/2011
Actors like to say that comedy is much more difficult to pull off than tragedy. Similarly, writing profoundly about seemingly weightless subjects and superficial people (at least on the surface) presents more of a challenge than academic subjects.
That’s why Walter Holland is to be commended for the mostly excellent collection Circuit. As the title implies, many of his poems are meditations on the gay dance party scene. I suspect that Holland named his book Circuit as opposed to “The Circuit” for the broader implications of the former: circuit as a conduit of energy; circular movement; athletic exercises.
All of these are present here. Holland looks at the sea of men at Fire Island Pines’ famous Tea parties as “would-be movie stars desirous of a scene to steal.” Of “To the Boys Who Dance in August,” he writes, “under/the harbor’s sky, these matadors of music/and mayhem charge their bull-like bodies sleek along the paths.”
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