Fellow Odd Fellow

From the Back Cover\nIn these artful poems, Steven Riel conjures a gay boy's coming-of-age as well as the cultural referents that anchor one gay man's identity. Riel imagines Tennyson's grief at the death of his friend Arthur Hallam and Ishmael's thoughts after sharing a bed with Queequeg in persona pieces of astonishing compassion. Riel's scope includes "drag queens, who glue themselves together/ follicle by mannerism by phrase" and an ailing friend--"the raw/ toothpick you've become." I admire Riel's pacing, precise language and unflinching gaze.
---Robin Becker, author of Domain of Perfect Affection\nThe witty, poignant, exuberant poems in Steven Riel's first collection celebrate the life and observations of "a man / with a strapless imagination / whose armoires are endless / & hold all that he might need." The reveling in gay experience calls up all sorts of poetic "fellow odd fellows," from Walt Whitman to Frank O'Hara, whose rapturous voices are echoed here.
---John Drury, author of The Refugee Camp\nFellow Odd Fellow is a book Melville's Ishmael might have written if he'd lived in our times. What I particularly love about the poet Steven Riel is what I love about Ishmael; he is able to be sociable with the horrors of this world--the politics of prejudice, the persistence of injustice, the ruthlessness of disease. This book's unflinching honesty and quiet elegance invite us to sail as far as our imagination will let us.
---Christopher Bursk, author of The First Inhabitants of Arcadia\nSteven Riel's Fellow Odd Fellow delineates the outsider--the odd man out--and transforms that role into a great odyssey of the mind. These poems aren't just fabulous, however: they overflow with sympathy and humor. With the outsider's keen perception Riel plays, mourns, and rejoices. These poems offer all that we might need with the ultimate reassurance that, here and now, we've "aligned / Where with What" we want to be.
---Elizabeth Robinson, author of Blue Heron