Ejay

by Ari Lohr

Whatever the hell it all means – here. Here is what Utopia is:
The Everything.
Love as a form of queerness,
queerness as a spiritual
and political construct.
An untellable mystical truth.
A dissection,
a manifesto,
a bible,
a meditation,
a prayer,
a paradox,
an intuition.
A knowing of the unknowable,
a pseudo-intellectual abstraction.
Most importantly, Ejay, a love letter.
I love you, Ejay. I love you and you are
Everything.

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Ari Lohr is a queer poet and English Education major at Boston University. He is a Brave New Voices semifinalist, Slamlandia finalist, Portland Poetry Slam champion, and a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. Focusing on the mystical intersections between power, sexuality, and identity, Ari’s poetry appears in the Northern Otter Press, Opia Lit, and more. He is the author of EJAY., a confessional love letter / poetry chapbook, and Gravity, his debut full-length poetry book with Gutslut Press. He is also the managing editor of the Bitter Fruit Review and the editor-in-chief of the Jupiter Review. He believes truth is malleable, professionalism is violence, and arrogance is sexy. Ari can be found at arilohr.com, or @arilohr on instagram.

Reviews

[Dre Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ari Lohr’s Ejay is an unending diary entry turned love letter, whispering with the echoes of trauma from days before, while freshly drawn hearts dry in the margins. It is a body becoming. One that continuously develops and redevelops who and what it is, as it navigates existing in a world of love, trauma, and realities that can be remade in new likeness. Lohr seems to walk a teetering line between a concrete airiness and a downward spiral, which reflects not only in his words, but the ways in which they appear on the page, unraveling in episodic bouts before returning to a more mundane and routine rhythm.

[Ami J. J. Sanghvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even aside from the stunning cover art, soothing fonts, lovely formatting, & perfect size of the book — well, this entire collection is raw, ethereal, authentic, immediate, infinite, & breathtaking. A stunning reminder of the vastness of queer love and queer joy written in truly inspired poetic form.