Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale of Two Poets by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard and Eric Norris
NOCTURNAL OMISSIONS
ISBN: 978-1-937420-00-0
$16.95; 168 Pages
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Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale of Two Poets - birthed through correspondence between authors Gavin Geoffrey Dillard and Eric Norris – is an unabashedly erotic, romantic, poetic, sometimes even philosophical dialogue on love, sex, and art’s glorious afterlife. You will never pick up a pen, a lover, or a book of poetry quite in the same way again.
ACADEMIA ON GAVIN
“The Naked Poet” by Scott Dillard
“Autobiographical Flesh” by Patrick Santoro
BE A VOYEUR!
Check out Eric’s Video Messages to Gavin:
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
I was late to the party. I didn’t get my hands on Gavin Dillard, or rather his anthology, A Day for a Lay: A Century of Gay Poetry (Barricade Books, 1999), until nearly a decade after its publication. It was 2008, the end of the Bush error and the sunset of the Evangelical Reich(t)’s influence that had held the LGBT community hostage as a political pawn. But in many places, including Red-as-Blood Arkansas (my home state), we had yet to experience even a hint of relief, and by the time A Day for a Lay ended up in my hands, I was attempting to train and magnify my own poetic voice.
A Day for a Lay was a master’s class in gay poetry. Gavin took me by the hand and gave me lessons on the history and future of the genre. He became my hands-on professor, and I, the malleable student in his classroom. He intensified Ginsberg and Gunn. He schooled me on Cavafy and Auden. He introduced me to poets whose paths would later intersect with my own, like Antler, who, two years later, would praise my first book and whom I would publish in Assaracus. Like Jim Cory, who would send me wonderful postcards with reviews of SRP titles. Like Felice Picano, who would offer me advice on running a small press. Like Vytautas Pliura, whose raw, honest style ripped any lasting impact of the closet from my own poetic MO. Like Ian Young, who just last week chided me from the Great White North for texting while driving.
I became acquainted with Eric Norris when John Stahle died and I inherited a responsibility to publish Ganymede Unfinished. Eric was one of the first to send me material for the tribute issue, and when my husband and I traveled to New York to attend John’s memorial, we fell in love with Eric’s wit and his proclamation that one day he’d bed Gavin Dillard. Eric was a day removed from a painful dental procedure. We blamed his delusional confidence on the pain medication he popped steadily while we enjoyed New York’s version of quesadillas. We didn’t realize, by that time, he was already corresponding with Gavin, a conversation that began after I’d raved about A Day for a Lay in a status update.
From their online exchanges, Nocturnal Omissions was born. Truly “A Tale of Two Poets,” it chronicles Gavin and Eric’s conversation-through-verse as they moved toward meeting for the first time. I’ll admit to being proud of this book. I’ll admit that it’s a feather in my SRP crown, and that bearing witness to Gavin and Eric’s interaction, at times playful, at times warlike, has been entertaining (and, okay, titillating). It also contains a beautiful poem-as-foreword written by Michael Lassell, another A Day for a Lay contributor.
I’ll admit to agreeing to publish this book sight-unseen, and to being relieved when I read the first few poems. My gut instinct was right.
What Gavin and Eric have written will mean different things to different people. Since it takes place in cyberspace, since Gavin and Eric both use Macs, some will see it as an iLove story. Some might see Letters to a Young Poet here: a poetic exchange where Gavin Geoffrey Dillard channels Rainer Maria Rilke, guiding and chiding a stubborn young man with much to learn about his craft.
As for me, as a gay publisher, I hope to see this book as our Bridges of Madison County. But maybe not for the reason you suspect. You see, when Gavin and Eric are gone, there will still be curious boys sneaking up to Auntie Mame’s attic. First, they will discover each other. Then, they will discover love. They will find a lump hidden under Auntie’s worn-out old mattress. That will be Gavin and Eric, tied up in a bundle of really hot porn.
Check out Nocturnal Omissions, and you’ll see what I mean. For a preview, check out this sampler PDF.
- Bryan
I think it may be the most astonishing book of gay poetry I have ever written. Co-written. No, no, no: I mean–read.
(God damn it, I gave myself away.)