Boy Am I

Kimberly Fahner is the author of You Must Imagine the Cold Here.

Divided into three sections, this ambitious collection of poems explores
the essence of masculinity and maleness. The first section, Impossible
Lyrics for the Body, chronicles the sense of expectation and wonder that
is encapsulated in a pregnancy. Many of the poems here deal with the
mystery of conception and of a woman’s body, as perceived through a
man’s eyes. “The Adventures of Kid Bean” (both I and II) and
“Song of Kid Bean” centre on the figure of the baby in utero.

In the second section, Tonguage, Cochrane admits to his own
masculinity, which is, by virtue of biology and psychology, very
different from the female experience. While recognizing this “jubilant
matrix of difference” between genders, the poet concludes in
“Reunion” that, despite the differences, “At the rise / of the
pubis where we meet / this perfect pivot we make / we are identical.
Admit this / as a beginning.” Reveling in the difference between
genders, Cochrane plays with poetry and language, incorporating a
quotation from Erin Mouré as a poetic prologue to this section.
“Vanilla Is a Flavour” and “Tonguage: 28th & Main” embody many
of the newer theoretical approaches that are becoming (perhaps
excessively) de rigueur in English graduate departments these days.

The final section, Boy Am I, pulls the man back to the boy he once was
in his youth, tracing the graceful line of male continuity that links
father to son in perpetuity. The last stanza of the final poem in the
book, “Boy,” speaks volumes: “As fathers, as dads, we are
beginning / to find a way back, through men & their measures, / to the
meaning of a boy.”