by John Belk
Autumn House Press, 2022
Paper: 978-1-63768-035-3 | eISBN: 978-1-63768-036-0
Library of Congress Classification PS3602.E4473G37 2022
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | AWARDS | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Poems considering self, masculinity, and culture through the spectacle of professional wrestling.
 

In this stunning debut, John Belk looks at the world of professional wrestling to excavate the real within the artificial and explore the projections we create, run from, and delight in. In The Gardens of Our Childhoods, the distance between spectacle and reality blurs.
 
Belk uses the spectacle of wrestling to stare deeply into American culture and masculinity, parsing the intersecting threads of patriarchy and gender, and unpacking identity formation and performance. As Belk pries into toxic masculinities, he leaves space also for tenderness, queerness, and resistance to normative structures, opening the potential for love and admiration. Populated by classic and contemporary wrestlers like André the Giant, Hulk Hogan, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Ricky Steamboat, Bruno Sammartino, Marcus “Buff” Bagwell, and more, this book is ultimately about the constant deconstruction and reconstruction of our identities that smudge fiction and reality. Like wrestlers in their operatic and winding storylines, we learn how to project and inhabit identities while growing into and fighting against the scripts we write for ourselves and those that are imposed on us.
 
The Gardens of Our Childhoods is the winner of Autumn House Press’s Rising Writer Prize in Poetry.
 

See other books on: American poetry | Belk, John | Gardens | Our Childhoods | Wrestling
See other titles from Autumn House Press