“whimsical, powerful, sexy”
Tender Bottoms
Ryan Tracy’s debut collection of poems, Tender Bottoms, explores the pleasures and anxieties of contemporary gay domestic life—the vicissitudes of romantic attachment, aging, fucking, social accountability, politics, and the reliance on life-sustaining pharmaceuticals—refracted in an homage to Gertrude Stein. Complimented by original full-color photographs, the poems hew to and depart from Stein’s style, finding something new to value in her poetic innovations while also asking for something more, not just from Stein, but from the present moment. In poems that range from the limpid to the ornate, the aphasic to the prosaic, a wry map of pleasure and presentiment emerges, pointing the way toward what Stein called “the bottom nature” of modern life.
Our inventory is SOLD OUT. But you might find copies at select retailers including Adam’s Nest (Provincetown, NY), Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza (Albany, NY), Market Block Books (Troy, NY), Citiot (Catskill, NY), and The Spotty Dog Books & Ale (Hudson, NY).
Published by Auntie Press through Troy Book Makers.
Book design by Michael Hofmann.
MORE ADVANCED PRAISE FOR TENDER BOTTOMS
“Tracy responds to Stein with unabashed enthusiasm … and the electric movements of a consciousness coming to a boil”
–Chris Campanioni
“Campy yet earnest, Tracy’s voice is clear and resolved, clever and accessible”
–Angelo Nikolopoulos
Video poem “& So” from Tender Bottoms, ft. Iris Cushing and Patrick James