Digressions of a Naked Party Girl

John Stanley is a policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

Sky Gilbert, playwright, novelist, director, filmmaker, and gay
activist, has published his first collection of poetry. Stream of
consciousness suits the confessional nature of these poems, and this
style dominates the collection’s various narratives. The reliance on
personal experience—in London, Halifax, Key West, and Toronto—is
reinforced with numerous references to gay icons (Lana Turner, Judy
Garland) and to the films that serve as inspiration (The Music Man, The
Rainmaker, Douglas Sirk movies). Some of the poems are grouped together,
but most stand alone.

The biographical element (“I need the romance of promiscuity”)
inevitably relates the sexual, with a plethora of details. However, the
ironic tone necessarily distances readers, much as the sexual content
may arouse their curiosity and draw them in. Irony and distance are
frequently cited as features in gay writing, but the sarcasm and
cynicism displayed in Gilbert’s work eventually wears thin. This
slender volume is unlikely to add to Gilbert’s hoped-for notoriety.