By Vincent Larson
For the Carter County Times
Willie Carver knows how to move people with the power of words. And he certainly knows how to cast out the best first line for a poem:
My older brother never seemed to notice things
unless he was pointing a gun at them.
You can’t help but want to read more after swallowing that bait. That’s a hook-line-and-sinker sturdy enough to reel in any fish, and Carver knows it. He also knows what he’s doing with the title of his new book of poetry. And yeah, sure, it’s meant to churn the waters a little bit; get the mud stirred up so we can see what’s actually hiding down there underneath the surface. But it’s not meant to be insulting or cause some sort of political fight. He’s just being honest about who he is and where he’s at – all while trying to start an important conversation.
In any crowded noisy room, the way you do that is by letting out a big yell to get everyone’s attention first. So, when it all finally quiets down, you can speak. That’s how a good teacher does it. And Carver is certainly a good teacher: a career educator who won the Kentucky Teacher of the Year award, and was Ambassador to the Kentucky Department of Education. He has spoken before Congress and the President, while also creating a platform for LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and Appalachian students – giving kids a way to be heard when very few people were listening.
Although he was widely acknowledged by his peers as one of the best teachers in Kentucky, it still wasn’t enough for certain folks. Because every single adult in this country has an opinion about what our kids should or should not be learning. Certainly a few administrators do – whether they’re actually working in the classroom or not. And unfortunately, very few people are actually listening to the opinions of the kids themselves. Especially queer kids.
So, when Carver had finally had enough harassment from establishment administrators, and felt the need to leave education, he decided to pen this book as a way to speak up for himself – and those kids he had to leave behind:
What I know is that little boy had a right to exist.
What I know is he had a right to dream.
What I know is he had a right to be listened to…
(from the Preface)
We’ve all got a lot of notions about what makes a boy or a girl – lessons we learned from our families mostly: moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents. And many of those lessons can be good. They help keep family traditions flowing; allow us to navigate the world while serving as a useful gender compass for our children.
But wise folks never stop learning, even after they grow up. And what we’re all discovering now is that a compass has many directions. It can point to more than just true North or South. Especially when it comes to gender; or why some folks love who they love; or how to teach our kids the self-esteem they need to keep on living, despite how ugly life can get.
Carver explores these themes frequently and gracefully in the best of these poems. Sometimes he does so directly, like in “Minnie Mouse Toy” where a fast-food worker stands firm against the rudeness of people who push their kids into gender roles too early. Those who force kids to wear only “boy” or “girl” colors; or who make kids play with only “girl” or “boy” toys:
“Would you like a Hot Wheel or a Barbie, sir?”
The words float like ghosts in front of me
when I speak them, frozen by the winter air
whipping in through the drive-thru window.
“Boys’ toy!” Gruff. No a. Just boys’ and toy. Two words.
“Okay. We have Hot Wheels and Barbies.”
“No wonder you work at McDonald’s, you idiot.” …
And sometimes Carver explores those themes in funny ways, recalling other gender barriers he faced as a teen worker:
‘Making biscuits is for girls.’
Well, you sure as heck could have fooled me …
I can make biscuits drop
like fat, dumpy stalactites willingly jumping
to their deaths
from an ambivalent spatula,
and I can roll out multiple-choice standardized biscuits
that stand waiting
for further instructions,
and I can command them to rise
from a sea of butter until their crusts harden
like carbohydrate continents in a casserole Pangaea …
The language here is as heavy and rich as a perfect biscuit – something to sink your teeth into. And any Appalachian cook worth their salt can already see that he’s right: he knows how to make a proper biscuit. But Carver also gets across a much more important point without having to hit us over the head with it like an iron skillet:
They said I couldn’t be the biscuit girl
because, well, I wasn’t a girl,
but that didn’t stop me from carefully observing the process
or from taking over one day when Rachel called in sick.
I was biscuit girl every weekend after that.
That’s really what Carver does best in these poems: giving us powerful images that serve as descriptions of what it’s like to grow up male, gay, and poor in Appalachia. This is a unique combination of hell that builds a prison for both the mind and body in our money-focused society. But Carver shows us all what this is like without being preachy – using a very old Appalachian tradition of storytelling about life.
Carver’s poems help remind us of a basic but often conveniently forgotten truth about Appalachians: we’re not all the same. And that is okay because we’re not an elegy – we’re a chorus. We have just forgotten we can sing. But Carver’s own voice is pure enough to start the concert, as he croons for those he had to leave behind:
sometimes you gotta mourn
and gather together enough time and space to create gravity
that wraps its roots deep and intimately around a moment
so you can be sure of what was real;
so you go ahead and cry, cuss, and mourn,
but keep your head pointed toward the sky
because this moment will not be the end of you.
Though many of the poems contain a profound sense of loss, time is Carver’s real power. He bends and shapes it to break the shackles of grief and regret, with verses that manipulate time like temporal hill sorcery: breaking the past into prismatic shards that are then gathered and reorganized into a far more beautiful picture. As in the ode to his husband, “Josh,” where Carver replaces a history of lost opportunities with a future of new love.
Or the holy resurrection of his beloved grandmother in “Salt-Free Funeral,” rendering her garbed in royal bathrobes complete with mystical pockets filled with the “paper towel-wrapped/ sausage biscuits” she always had ready for her grandchildren. A triumphant, righteous country angel come to disperse the vicious wrath of a judgmental preacher who refuses to let anyone mourn in peace, because he serves his own agenda rather than God’s.
Time is central to this collection. But so are food stamps, savory neckbone soup, lost kittens, ramen noodle talismans, orange drink and beef jerky, trombones, southern accents, the richness of country language, and cogitating
it all under the light of a “Bluegrass Moon.” There is something for every Appalachian reader here, with each of Carver’s memories treated as newly plucked flowers gathered and pressed between the pages of some ageless family Bible.
So that years later, a reader can flip through those leaves and see the pure blossoms still perfectly preserved. Sacred Appalachian memories flushed with the new promise of youth rewritten:
What is done can always be undone,
and what is arranged can be rearranged …
In that moment, I learned
that even the past has yet to be written …
And though Carver never shies away from the truth of his mission: to help current LGBTQ+ kids who are still struggling to find their way in difficult spaces, it is a mission he asks us to help him with. Because he’s concerned about the fate of all of America’s children – our children. He just sees the Appalachian people as the sturdy hidden spine of America; those who have grown up strong in the deep hollers and far green peaks that angle into a cobalt sky.
Hills and hollers that Carver still loves. Because despite the pain, both time and memory contain important gifts of hope. Gifts he offers freely to everyone:
The sunshine stretching through the polyester lace curtains
yawned its buttery warmth across the barren kitchen
in what was surely a magic spell
to make us remember the moment.
“Gay Poems for Red States” by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
104 pages.
University Press of Kentucky, 2023
Vincent Larson holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is an Appalachian native who works as a freelance writer and editor in the Southern Ohio and Kentucky region.
