Boy with Thorn (Pitt Poetry Series) Paperback – September 9, 2015

‘Therefore, my head was kingless’ thus begins the first poem in rickey laurentiis’ collection. and i wonder how can a head be ‘kingless’? crownless, yes, kingless—a crown of thorns might be in the future, but for now, i want to consider kingless. a game of checkers, each piece is a head, and the double pieces are kinged, so to be kingless is to not have been kinged. but before moving on, i want to take another look at the title to see what territory i’m entering. Conditions for a Southern Gothic. well, he’s not talking barns and pitchforks and farmers. not exactly.I was a head alone, moaning in a wetblack field. I was like any of those deserter slavesWhose graves are just the pikes raised for their heads, reshackled, blue And plain as fear.this is a checkerboard as macabre as the torch-ignited christians nero used to light his grounds at night.swimming in the tradition of the southern gothic waters where the southern agrarian poets swam, john crowe ransome and his expanding symbolism, allan tate and his racist proclamation of blacks challenged by sterling brown. it’s with brown, laurentiis finds his tradition of true forebears for his southern poems. I Dreamt I Saw Two Men hums with the faint sounds of brown and cullen.it’s a photo of two lynched black men to which laurentiis continually returns. what i referred to as metaphor, with his own slant in Of Leaves That Have Fallen, a long poem inspired by and borrowings from wallace stevens, he calls: ‘…brackish synonyms, huh, for death without a head.’christ does make an appearance in You Are Not Christ, with its attention to words taken from the crucifixion.For the drowning, yes, there is always panic.or peace. Your body behaving finally by instinctalone. Crossing out wonder. Crossing outa need to know. You only feel you need to live.that you deserve it. Even here. Even as your chestfills with a strange new air, you will not askwhat this means. Like prey caught in the wolf’s teeth,but you are not the lamb. You are what’s in the lambthat keeps it kicking. Let it.art and suffering meld the title poem, swerving away from christian art to pagan art. Boy With Thorn does not allude to a crown of thorns, but to a thorn in a foot of boy, a work sculpted in first century b.c. or contrast the hard sculpture with the delicate Black Iris, and how laurentiis turns a less than stony eye on o’keefe’s painting.as difficult as some of the subject matter may be to read, there’s no questioning laurentiis’ poetic acumen and artistry, with an exactitude he keeps getting it right.

Amazing book!

Laurentiis' Boy with Thorn pokes and prods with an honest exhilartion of a unique and rich voice.

Powerful, haunting, and beautiful--exemplified perfectly by the opening and closing poems.

Amazing! A poet and collection that can definitely stand next to the greats. Language haunts and electrifies you. Form arches and bends you. Good poetry that I haven't seen in a while. Undoubtedly represents contemporary Southern Gothic profoundly and beautifully in this day and age. Truly a masterpiece. Worth the buy. Worth the read. Worth the re-read.

After reading this collection, I feel like I know the poet. We may not have much in common, but I understand his twists and his deeply felt Southern-(gay)-gothic roots. He takes the reader on a journey that is historical and still very painful and relevant. Stunning, well-done poetry.

This is a collection very conscious of its author's identity as a gay black man. What frustrated was that for all that consciousness, it proved remarkably unfocused. Not once did I find that pithy, damaging couplet that rearranged my world. Rather, there was a lot of mannered rambling one could not help but feel needed a good editor to bring it to the next level. I was a little disappointed. I sensed talent, but it was largely undone by being published before the final tight read was done.