Breakfast in Bed and Spittles the Clown

I hope that all of you have been enjoying spring, wherever you are. The weather here in New York has been a little ‘schizo’ and I feel right at home. So some updates and reminders before I tell you about Lawrence Schimel’s latest Spanish poetry collection…

  

DANGER PANIC! was a wild, wild success—you boys really laid it on them! Such thunderous applause…I’ve come to the realization that PANIC! is the only ongoing monthly queer reading series in Gotham. Bluestockings hosts all kinds off wonderful one-offs and other venues host queer readings as well (the layers are endless), but I believe PANIC! is the only series right now (please correct me if I’m wrong). Dean Johnson’s Reading for Filth does occasional gatherings, but since his unfortunate passing and The Rapture’s folding a while back, their monthly output has been interrupted—so thanks for making PANIC! everything it’s becoming.

 

On May 27^th we’ll be presenting HISPANIC PANIC!, which I’m going to do three times a year—in January, May and September. This installation will feature Larry La Fountain, who’ll be joining us from the University of Michigan where he teaches, Maegan ‘La Mamita Mala’ Ortiz, Charles Rice-González, Karen Jaime, me, and Cristina Izaguirre, who’ll be joining us for the first time. Six Latino LGBT warriors armed with tales and poems of politics and pleasure—save the date (I will send out official announcements and releases as we get closer).

 

I’ll also be participating in an event being staged at Dixon Place on the Lower East Side. It’s part of the Hot Shots series that Earl Dax produces and which Eddie Ramoran is curating. On the night of May 30^th, I will be dragging Spittles the Clown, my alter ego, out of the closet, for a one-time spoken word performance. The piece is titled “Spittles the Clown on Making Money during HARD Times” and contains all kinds of subject matters you would rather not discuss with your mother—most of you anyway. Fellow Latina Karen Jaime is also on the bill, as are a bunch of other people I will tell you about on May 15th’s post.  

Okay…

 

Lawrence Schimel’s Desayuno en la cama

(Egales editorial, Madrid, Barcelona, 2008)

 

Madrid-based writer, poet and publisher Lawrence Schimel’s latest poetry collection Desayuno en la cama (en español) dazzles the eyes, heart and spirit with themes of love, desire, sex and infatuation. He is a true romantic—these poems are sensual, honest and at times even adorable. They capture the contemporary queer man’s longing for, what are often, opposing forces; companionship and freedom, simplicity and adventure. At times his voice worries that others might hear him in the midst of passionate sex; other times he dives into the carnal world of male sexuality with all the enthusiasm of a lusting virgin.

This brand of magical poetry serves as a testament to the complexities we experience as desiring queers and also serves as a crucial document of the rewards and heartbreaks we reap, as men who live our lives as we so deem to. “I have sex with other men,” he tells a man, “but breakfast in bed is ours alone”. Episodes of cyber-infatuations and long-distance yearning ring all too dear and true. Schimel’s fearless confessions of yearning for male beauty—the desire that marginalizes us—is the poetry’s driving force, the wind in its sails, the man he explores with ever-thirsting lips. Desayuno en la cama is a bold foray into queer Madrid noir and glows with the scent of love just made.

To order:
http://www.libreriaberkana.com/buscador.php?searchp=Desayuno%20en%20l
a%20cama

 

If any of you have book suggestions that I might want to review, please drop me a message at: firekingpress@yahoo.com

 

 

Xoxo

Charlie

www.firekingpress.com

 

This review also appears in Ambiente, a Miami-based LGBT Latino culture e-zine: www.ambiente.us

 

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