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Buy it now direct from Lethe Press or from our Amazon.com store - The Buoyancy of It All  

Poetry is so immediate and confessional that the best of it sounds like an intimate conversation with your best friend. Even if you don’t know the poet personally, by the time you finish a slim volume of his, you sometimes feel as if you know him better than you know yourself. Such is the case with Robert Walker’s debut collection, The Buoyancy of It All.

Walker’s gay-basher, straight-acting, molested, bullied, boogeyman-nightmared past comes rushing at you in a short 80 pages. But as serious as that sounds, his wry, knowing voice sugars it enough to make it not only palatable, but downright addictive. His pop culture references range from 90’s teen heartthrobs to The Wizard of Oz, but they’re never too obscure or far out. His sense of humor is evident in many of the titles: “Sacred Cows Make Fine Cheeseburgers,” “Mrs. Potatohead’s Uterus,” “5 Viable Routes of Explaining Your Role in a Pornographic Film” and “Question # 26 On The Red Cross Donation Questionnaire” are some of my favorites. But the work that follows the cute titles is intricate and the kind of funny that makes you wonder why you laughed in the first place.

Several poems in this collection have multiple parts, each branching off the other to tell a story too large for one to contain. My favorite is the “Nightmare” series, especially “Nightmare: The One In Which I Tell Her I Love Her & She Believes Me.” This nine-part poem tells the story of a young gay man trying to pass for straight, a beautifully conflicted word salad that, at times, reads more like prose than poetry:

            “You’re naked. You’re pulling the covers off. You’re saying try it, you

            might like it. I’m cold. I want to stop; to wake up. It tastes plastic like

            boiled Barbie parts. I think this is what aliens must taste like. I think if

            I wrap my lips tight enough, if I suck until we’re both chapped, I can

            turn you inside out—I could find a mouthful of something familiar. But

            your cunt is stubborn. It stays moist and concave. I am convexed by the

            situation.” 

Walker’s wordplay leaves me breathless and jealous, as does his honesty and directness in such frank poems as the powerful “The Rapee Remembers,” the self-loathing of “A Joke I Used to Tell” and the painful regret of “My History of Violence.” Yet nothing can quite prepare you for “The Boogeyman and I Seek Couple’s Counseling (A Poem in One Act).” This brief play/poem—one, again, of a series dealing with the boogeyman—embodies Walker’s work. It’s simultaneously funny, scary and heartbreaking, cutting close to some essential relationship truths. Brilliant stuff.

I had the pleasure of meeting Robert Walker and listening to him read at this years Saints and Sinners gathering, and his delivery is as impeccable as his words. It’s a shame you can’t hear his performance, but this is a wonderful collection full of heart and nerve.

The Buoyancy of It All will take you away indeed. 

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler