Night Logic

Description

Winner of the Snowbound Chapbook Award

The poems in Night Logic deal with queer coming-of-age and desire, as well as the persistent impact that childhood trauma can have on queer relationship-building. Focusing on the speaker’s longing to be seen, as well as his frequent desire to hide, Night Logic charts the speaker’s journey out of the closet and into an adult world that is both daunting and liberating at once. The poems are mostly confessional, using the natural imagery of the speaker’s childhood to evoke longing and loss. Again and again, the poems analyze the role that the closet has played in his struggles with self-articulation, as well as his parents’ divorce and the ways in which that rupture disorients him in his search for connection (romantic or otherwise). The speaker’s surrounding landscapes function as both a mirror and as a conduit to a different way of being: the speaker looks for himself, and for a way out of himself, through the grasses, flowers, and animals in the world around him. Night Logic explores the psychology of suppression in lucid, cinematic detail, presenting an elegant portrait of the pain that often comes with individuation.

Poetry.

“Night Logic is an exquisite suite of poems rendering a family challenged by loss. In the aftermath, a young son becomes a de facto father to his younger brother. And a mother becomes a tragic and heroic figure. Matthew Gellman illuminates this dark domestic space while the speaker of these poems struggles with bullying, violence and his own sexuality. The poems in Night Logic are both mythic and grounded, formidable in their affection and insight.”—from Snowbound Judge Denise Duhamel

Author Bio