Argento Series

by Kevin Killian

Poetry. LGBT Studies. One of SPD's bestselling authors, Kevin Killian's stories have had wide circulation among the avant-garde for many years. The poems in ARGENTO SERIES are loosely organized around the films of the great Italian/Brazilian filmmaker Dario Argento, whose take on the horror/thriller genre have made him arguably the most censored filmmaker in modern film history. But AIDS, and more specifically death, are as commonly the real subject of these poems, and Killian's ability to blend a light, transgressive, O'Hara-like wit with his sense of loss allows these poems to achieve something that is not mere sentimentality. For those who wonder how AIDS can be written about without indulging in cliches, Killian's book will come as a revelation and a gift.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Art, 21st Century

85 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

About the author

Kevin Killian was an American poet, author, and playwright of primarily LGBT literature. He is also a highly regarded editor. My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, which he co-edited with Peter Gizzi, won the American Book Award for poetry in 2009. His novel, Impossible Princess, won the 2010 Lambda Literary Award as the best gay erotic fiction work of 2009. Killian is also co-founder of the Poets Theater, an influential poetry, stage, and performance group based in San Francisco.

He is married to Dodie Bellamy.

Reviews

[Aurelija · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’m afraid of my face, that gathers in a scrunchie (…)

and a foot away from il lago di zombi…”

Kaip nebanaliai rašyti apie AIDS? Pavyzdžiui, per Dario Argento siaubo filmus

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Argento is the most sublime, elegant, and terrifying kind of camp. I think I could say the same thing about these poems. They share the bright opaque bloodshed and repressed trauma of the Giallo master's most notable works but all refracted though the prism of the aids crisis. Really heartbreaking but beautiful and occasionally really funny. Highlight for me was Tenebrae and Who.

[Terence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Killian is both and inspiration and friend. He's been a huge supporter of my writing so I was intrigued by this premise of writing poetry by way of the films of Dario Argento, and not just any poetry but poetry dealing explicitly with friends and lovers dying of AIDS. I thought the synthesis of horror as a genre and horror as a real lived experience was compelling, and I am so glad I got around to this. It's tragic, grotesque, funny, and tragic, most poems are titled after films from Opera to The Bird with the Crystal Plummage and use dialogue and scenes to graphically illuminate the violence and gore in a surreal way. It's quite brilliant and quite frankly, moving.

[Jak Merriman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Seasons don't fear the reaper,
nor do the wind, the sun, and the rain,
we can be like they are.”

it was an older man showed me
the steps of the dance
I can't forget
tall man whose shoes I
stepped on when
I was trying

to write
before AIDS catastrophe
made writing inequitable
the mind, alone, a corsage
of pink crinkles rather
like the asshole of Tommy
which when

I touched it with my thumb
wet
shivered alive, alert
in Port Jefferson
above a harbor ringed with boats
on the bed a web of his
wet clothes
that's me
thinking

[Erik Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Red stiletto heel in the raw mouth of the youth. The beach becomes a book, becomes a murder. I want to write a poem as long as California. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" Her body hurls through the plate glass, shards of undoing, dark pulsion glinting, the body unwound. A thousand holes like seeds, here in the seedy part of Rome. She takes a dagger in a darkroom, O heart of mine."

[Lars Meijer · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘What’s worse, this rotten medication that kills you with cramps / or the feeling that / soon the insects will ignore me, I’ll be this dumb fuck’

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the Pilot Press reissue from last year. A fantastic set of poems.

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Strange. Sad. Personal. Horrific. Funny. Fantastical. FIVE STARS!!!

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, my, Goodness. This is exquisite, elegiac, horror effervescence. It lowers the temparature of my heart.