Masculinity Parable — Myles Taylor
“Is gender trash? I mean, yeah, but that’s not the question. The question is, does it need to be? And this is where we start the work.”
Myles Taylor’s debut full-length collection explores the concept of a non-toxic masculinity: if it’s possible, if it exists, and if not, how we can build it ourselves. Through the lens of a neurotic working-class transmasculine person, manhood is viewed not quite as an aspiration, but as a curse to be broken through reimagining: masculinity as kitchen / masculinity as glitter / masculinity as sunset / masculinity as service / as city block / as cicada shell / as abundance, relaxation, community, and ability to heal. To transition is to willingly enter a violent lineage, both in terms of violence done by men and violence done to the trans community, and Myles’ poems are engaged in the work of pulling apart, examining, and deciding which pieces of the gendered world are worth keeping.
“Is gender trash? I mean, yeah, but that’s not the question. The question is, does it need to be? And this is where we start the work.”
Myles Taylor’s debut full-length collection explores the concept of a non-toxic masculinity: if it’s possible, if it exists, and if not, how we can build it ourselves. Through the lens of a neurotic working-class transmasculine person, manhood is viewed not quite as an aspiration, but as a curse to be broken through reimagining: masculinity as kitchen / masculinity as glitter / masculinity as sunset / masculinity as service / as city block / as cicada shell / as abundance, relaxation, community, and ability to heal. To transition is to willingly enter a violent lineage, both in terms of violence done by men and violence done to the trans community, and Myles’ poems are engaged in the work of pulling apart, examining, and deciding which pieces of the gendered world are worth keeping.
“Is gender trash? I mean, yeah, but that’s not the question. The question is, does it need to be? And this is where we start the work.”
Myles Taylor’s debut full-length collection explores the concept of a non-toxic masculinity: if it’s possible, if it exists, and if not, how we can build it ourselves. Through the lens of a neurotic working-class transmasculine person, manhood is viewed not quite as an aspiration, but as a curse to be broken through reimagining: masculinity as kitchen / masculinity as glitter / masculinity as sunset / masculinity as service / as city block / as cicada shell / as abundance, relaxation, community, and ability to heal. To transition is to willingly enter a violent lineage, both in terms of violence done by men and violence done to the trans community, and Myles’ poems are engaged in the work of pulling apart, examining, and deciding which pieces of the gendered world are worth keeping.
Praise for Masculinity Parable:
“‘Maybe,’ Myles Taylor writes in this book that navigates gender, masculinity, labor, and capitalism, ‘my heart is literally too fucking big.’ I read that line and smiled wide. And nodded. And felt my own heart beat. This is a book with a big fucking heart, a book that complicates and clarifies what it means to be alive in a world where ‘no human is too good to wax poetic / about an orangepink cloud.’ Myles Taylor holds grief and goodness in the same poetic line. They lament what it means to live without an ‘equity of care’ in a body that deserves such care, and they—at the same time—celebrate a world where healing is still possible, where anything can be made into a dancefloor, where we can all still be surprised by love. This is poetry that really lives. It is poetry that makes me want to live. I needed that, really, and maybe you do, too. Sometimes we have to be reminded of tenderness, especially in a society that systematically removes it from our lives. Masculinity Parable reminds me of tenderness. It does that beautiful work. Read this book and let your heart grow big.”
—Devin Kelly, author of In This Quiet Church Of Night, I Say Amen
“The thing about Myles is that their poems do this thing where they make me think of voices as parts of the body, as solid. In Masculinity Parable, voices keep changing, touching, drowning each other out—the voices of strangers, lovers, workers, futures, selves—like "bundles of string lights caught in my throat," which is to say tangled, lit, somehow more bright for being near to each other. This is a book about transness that knows being trans is about manyness. Masculinity Parable is a generous, funny, and lush account of learning how to allow beauty and terror both, always inside each other, on the bus, at the venue, in your head, and on the clock. I love Myles' poems because they insist, over and over, that the work of all love resides in that allowance, a daily practice of listening to both a thing and its opposite. Good poetry, I think, attunes me more to my own living among others, and this is very good poetry.”
—Bradley Trumpfheller, author of Reconstructions
“Myles Taylor weaves together a scathingly vivid world of gender, food, capitalism, ghosts, sex, class, and family. Masculinity Parable is a love letter and a cautionary tale—to queerness and transition, Boston and workers, relationships and family, authenticity and 'close enough'. The reader is welcomed in, handed an apron, and told ‘get to work.’”
—Robbie Dunning, author of Up All Night In Worship
Myles Taylor (they/he) is a transmasculine writer, organizer, host, food service worker, Capricorn-Aquarius cusp, and glitter enthusiast. They hold a BA from Emerson College’s Writing, Literature and Publishing program, where they began their stint as an award-winning poetry slam competitor. They currently live amongst the rats of Boston's Allston-Brighton neighborhood and host the historic Wednesday night poetry show at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. Their list of publications can be found at myles-taylor.com, and their neuroses can be found on Twitter @mylesdoespoems.
