billy merrell

Book Review: This Is PUSH

2007-05-20T14:40:00.000-04:00

This Is PUSH: New Stories from the Edge
edited by David Levithan (2007, Push)

Ever since I read David Levithan's exceptional Boy Meets Boy (Knopf, 2003) a few months back, I have wanted to read more of this author's work, so when I found that he had edited this recently released anthology of stories by other authors of Push (an imprint of Scholastic Books aimed at teen readers), I snapped up a copy. Despite the excellence of Boy Meets Boy, I thought that the overall quality of this collection would be similar to most such collections: it would be the usual grab bag of some good, some bad, and most merely passable stories.

I am happy to report that I was wrong wrong wrong: every story in this anthology represents quality work. While this consistent quality of This is Push makes it difficult to distinguish any one story as "the best," Billy Merrell's "My Boyfriend Refuses to Speak in Iambic Pentameter" is, I believe, an instant classic and I would be surprised if it didn't show up on next year's Lambda Awards. This is an amazing little gem in the form of a play in blank verse that portrays the relationship between two teen boys and the struggle toward expressing emotion, which represent the teen struggle toward self-expression but also a defiance of social pressures for individuals to maintain a "don't tell" silent complicity in exchange for token acceptance. Iambic pentameter's classical roots in subversive speech have rarely, in modern poetry, been made so starkly apparent.

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You think I speak like this because I can? Because without the beat there is no heart?! My form is not my structure, it's my mode: it's how I handle love....I hope you sing — but not because you think I want you to. Because you can't hold back, so much unsaid, because you've looked so deeply in my eyes that you can't see much else. Because instead of wanting your life the same, you realize that maybe it can never be again. And that's okay.
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Other favorites are likely to be based, as mine are, upon personal preference, and there is a wide rang of storytelling modes to choose from. "Six Killers" by Markus Zusak is a story told from the perspective of a quirkily original goth teen who works as a gravedigger in a cemetary, while "People Watching" by Chris Wooding gives the classic first date story a fantasy spin.

The story I fell in love with, however, is Christopher Krovatin's "Ginger," in which a young girl has a crush on a red-headed punk boy who hangs out in her father's used record store. The characters are smart and believable and did I mention smart? (Up to now, I had not really thought about the idea of the "first date book," even though I have one of these stories myself.)

Having fallen in love with Christopher Krovatin's writing, I went looking for other works by him, and was pleased to find he wrote a book titled Heavy Metal and You (Push reprint edition, 2006), which features a protagonist who spends the story explaining why he loves heavy metal, a story idea I find particularly appealing after having read Joe Hill's _Heart-Shaped Box_, which got me thinking about the mythic and narrative possibilities of metal music. Krovatin also has a new book coming out titled _Venom_, but I have not been able to locate any information about it.

Whether you are a fan of YA fiction or not, This is Push is an outstanding collection of short stories, and I recommend it strongly to anyone who craves the experience of falling in love with some new writers.

- The Blind Bookworm Blog

Some News about The Full Spectrum

2007-03-29T00:06:00.000-04:00

The Full Spectrum has been named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category, was named a New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, and will be a part of the Best Books for the Teen Age list that is circulated to most libraries in the US. Also, in December, The Full Spectrum was named one of the Insight Out Book Club’s books of the year.

Two Starred Reviews for The Full Spectrum!

2006-06-11T19:22:00.000-04:00

I haven't been sharing all of the good news concerning The Full Spectrum, an anthology I co-edited with David Levithan, mostly because I've been posting everything at the book's site, Queerthology.com--but in case you haven't heard, the anthology has received two starred reviews, one from Kirkus and the other from Booklist as well as several other glowing recommendations. Here are some quotes from each of the ones I mentioned:

"This emotionally spicy collection will inspire identification, compassion and hope in readers queer or not." - Kirkus

"Insightful, extraordinarily well written, and emotionally mature, the selections offer compelling, dramatic evidence that what is important is not what we are but who we are." - Michael Cart for Booklist

To read about the project and its contributors, or for a list of our upcoming events, check out the Queerthology site.

An Excerpt from Talking in the Dark

2006-04-10T10:38:00.000-04:00

Check out the poems from Talking in the Dark up on the PUSH site.

And here are some others:

Talking in the Dark

Before college, before high school, before my voice
finally cracked, before I could do my first pull-up,
and long before my first real kiss, you and I

held the same girls’ hands. First Karen, then Tiffany,
then Jessica. And by the time you kissed Amy, I knew
it wasn’t her I wanted to kiss. I spent the night at your house

and we talked in the dark until we fell asleep. Those years
were short ones, seem shorter now. I hated myself for lying
so still in the bed beside you, as awkward as a body

and as inarticulate. I have never wanted to kiss you,
only hold you now and then or be held. I know now
that you wouldn’t have cared and just wanted to be

trusted. I have pictures of us with girls at dances.
I’m wearing my father’s dress shirt. It balloons away
from my body. But you are right there next to me,

in my shirt’s reach. Later you won’t stand so close, and Amy
will have to pose us, pleading closer. No, no. Closer.

Folding Sheets

It was just the two of us then, a sea of linen
between us, her at one end, me at the other.

And then she said lift and the sheet went up
like a white whale, or a hill rising up to be born

out of the earth, a wave slowly swelling, beginning
to break. And then the air underneath is undone

like hands just after a prayer. Just before
the sheet went slack, she said okay and I would

run to her, to hug her, to press my face into the fabric
of her belly. Held there by the moment memory makes

huge and soft, I fell into my mother as I would the Earth.
She’d say to hand over my corners. Let go, reach down,

back away, lift again. Our sea grew heavy from being folded
and folded. Nothing was like that first white rise and fall,

that first huge ballooning and breathing out,
all space ours and so little between us, then.

My Father, Reading to Me

I was so angry when I heard she told,
not because you knew, but because I wanted to
be a man before I stopped being a man to you.
And when Brian said that you were mad
that she did, that you knew and wanted me to
tell you, I pulled the book I was reading
up over my face so he couldn’t see.
And when I opened my eyes to the text,
I looked at the strange shapes of the letters
and imagined you reading to me
like I have never remembered: me in your lap,
your finger tracing the page as you would
the spine down a woman’s back.

Shhh

You drive us home that night, stroke my leg like one
strokes an animal to calm him, though I am

so near sleep I feel guilty. You say it’s okay
so I tilt my seat back, watch the lights

passing through the side mirror, stars slowly strung
like beads: quickly passing and aligning. Such

ease. Your hand rounds my knee and then back.
Slow pulse of the road, impossible to read

how fast we’re going. It’s okay, go to sleep but
I want to watch your reflection in the windshield. You are

the one who has to get up early. You are the one
who’s been up all day and should be sleeping.

But you say shhh and I grip your hand,
unable to see the road and no need to.

Quotes! Quotes!

2006-04-05T19:17:00.000-04:00

"Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language."
Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language

You asked for it, and here it is: a growing catalog of quotes, inspirations, and thoughts for aspiring writers. And you should leave your own favorite quotes behind as comments.

Click Here to go to the new Quotes page!

The Reviews!

2006-04-01T19:18:00.000-05:00

Here's what people thought about Talking in the Dark when it first came out in 2003.

from Booklist, December 1, 2003

"Merrell has packed a lot of memories into his 22 years: his parents' divorce and remarriages ('I was seven, and remember you loving each other, then not'); realization of his homosexuality ('You sort of know. In that vague way you know you want to write or paint'); and his own failed and new relationships.

"He has also packed a lot of wisdom into his life -- wisdom about life, death, self-acceptance, and the vagaries of love and lust. Likewise, he has garnered a wealth of writing craft, and his free-verse memoir is rich with metaphor, words carefully chosen to say enough but not too much. In one beautiful poem, for example, he alludes to death as that first terrifying jump off the diving board: 'Is that what Heaven is like -- four seconds and a splash?'

"Talking in the Dark captures twenty-two sad, lonely, yet hopeful years in a life readers will hope will be a long and productive one."

Frances Bradburn

from School Library Journal, January 2004

"An affecting memoir told in verse, this work launches a promising young poet. It is more than the recollection of faltering family life; it also deals with Merrell's acceptance of his homosexuality. It is about sons and brothers, friends and lovers.

"The individual poems enhance one another yet stand alone. The language is measured, doled out carefully, artfully. He writes about his mother: "She's known, she'll say, since I was five/ and I'll want to ask why/ she didn't tell me sooner, but instead ask/ if she's okay." Memories of when he and his father almost speak of his closet homosexuality, and when the moment passes are related in poignant phrases. The poems reveal the author's journey through childhood through the worrisome pit of teen sexuality, made all the more harrowing when a lover dies of AIDS.

"He silently carries around his fear for ages. He writes, "Admitting/ the danger is a danger in itself." This memoir is as difficult as it is beautiful. Merrell writes, "Years later I'll wonder how I didn't know I was lonely when everyone around me did." His sophisticated verse and compelling story will capture attention as it stirs compassion."

Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY

from VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates), April 2004

"In counterpoint to Eireann Corrigan's You Remind Me of You, Merrell lays open the journal of his life, taking readers with him through his parents' divorce, his awakening sexuality, and his quest to find love and acceptance while discovering himself in the process. Merrell's poetry is conversational and questioning, frequently arranged into unrhymed couplets, breaking lines almost randomly on the page. Each poem is a snapshot in Merrell's adolescent slideshow, the same figures sometimes reappearing often throughout the text. Readers are compelled to follow Merrell's hesitating steps to uncover the secret he has kept from himself: his homosexuality. Once it is revealed, Merrell shares with readers the first time he kisses a boy; the ache of unrequited, secret love; and the reality of HIV as it claims his friend Ben and forces him to face his own mortality.

"The poetry in this collection spans a number of years, and the pieces are divided into five sections from the past to the present. Merrell addresses sexuality with a childlike delicacy, choosing to focus on its intimacy and emotion. Reflective in nature, the poems in this memoir will appeal to older teens, gay or straight, who have struggled to understand themselves and how they fit into the complexity of human relationships."

Write a Review!

2006-04-01T19:15:00.000-05:00

I'd love to hear what you think of Talking in the Dark! Send me an email with your own review and let me post your thoughts on this site!: billy@talkinginthedark.com.

New Poems

2006-04-01T17:31:00.000-05:00

In my attempt to share my process with interested writers, I post most of my first drafts, revisions, and more on my blog, so feel free to visit me there at any time.

But for those of you who don't want to navigate through my various journalings, you can go here to read a few of my newest poems.

You can also hear me read three of my new poems by clicking the links below:
Undoing
Nkonde Song
Tell Me All That Isn't Lost