The Love of a Good Man

by Michael G. Khmelnitsky

Overview

This book, divided into four parts, uses the Ancient Greek taxonomy of love as its guiding principle: The first part, "Loving Men," ventures into the realms of ἀγάπη (brotherly love), φιλία (friendship), ξενία (guest-friendship), and στοργή (familial affection). The second part, "Loving a Man," is devoted to ἔρως (intimate love) and contains the poems for which the author's self-severing lover serves as a muse. The third part, "Loving Me," is firmly entrenched in the domain of φιλαυτία (self-love) and traces the highest points of the author's poetic self-definition and sexual awakening. The fourth part contains the eponymous, epic queer poem of 652 lines (give or take) that embodies an exuberant and unholy union between T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" and J. F. Shade's "Pale Fire."

While We Were Hateful People, Michael G. Khmelnitsky's previous poetry collection, was a meditation on neurodivergence, queerness, and heteronormativity, The Love of a Good Man evinces an examination of the other side of this coin—the vagaries of homosocial affinity and homosexual desire, their seeming impossibility, their historiography, and their erasure—prompted by the author's abrupt disaffection by a man.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940186183150
Publisher:	JLRB Press
Publication date:	01/11/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

My name is Lucía M. Po­lis (she/he), but I write under the pen name Mi­chael G. Khmel­nitsky. I am a neuro­queer po­et, trans­lator, and edi­tor. I hold a Ph.D. in lit­erary trans­la­tion stud­ies and I have been writ­ing and trans­lating poetry since 1996.

I was born in Moscow, in the imaginary country known as the U.S.S.R., lived in Israel—during the Gulf War and First Intifada—and in Canada, and then worked in Japan and the United States.

Before the COVID Pandemic, I visited more than twenty-five countries. At any given point in time, I know between three and five languages. I have written more than one thousand poems, some of which have appeared in Uprooted, The Liar, and my poetry collections We Were Hateful People, and The Love of a Good Man.

I live on Vancouver Island. In time free from work, I agonize over the written line, haunt poetry evenings in dazzling dresses, set boundaries, love friends, tend to plants, keep house, take walks, and go on long drives to nowhere in particular.