AEGiS-BKREV: Subway Stops: Collected Poems

Subway Stops: Collected Poems

GLB Publishers, PO Box 78212, San Francisco, CA 94107. 83p. ISBN 1-879194-24-4. $11.95.
Abnorman. 1998.

Norman Nichols, whose pen name was Abnorman, was born December 16, 1956 in Louisville, KY and died 38 years later of AIDS. He was constantly on the move from Miami to Washington State, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Houston, and finally back to Louisville. Most of the poetry in this book was written during his San Francisco years. He wrote spontaneously without much revision. His work was little appreciated by most of his friends and strangers of the time. Only 91 poems have survived with 67 of them in Subway Stops. The original manuscripts are in the Williams-Nichols Institute, Inc., a gay and lesbian library and archives in Louisville.

His poems are of two types: "Upper Level" and "Lower Level." The Upper Level poems are light and of things that many people enjoy--love, afternoons in the park, haircut, and innocence. In "I'm Pleading, Innocence," he writes "Come, let me teach you of innocence. I have the truth to tell. Take my hand, take my work, take a ride. Come on..." Lower Level, on the other hand, are "those poems filled with his most startling verbal pyrotechniques. Images of leather sex, heavy drug trips, orgiastic nights, high powered rushes, assorted degradations and times of madness."

These are poems from the heart of one who lived his short life to the fullest. He made no excuses for himself and was not devastated when he discovered he was HIV positive. Recommended reading by anyone who enjoys gay poetry.

Keywords: Poems)

Copyright (c) 1999 - Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Reviews may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.
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Copyright © 1999 - The University of Illinois at Chicago. All materials in the journal are subject to copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.

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