A review by paltrindome
Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.75

ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW:

"forget the world's smallness. i'm tired
of pretending. i've been lost. the storeroom 
of a hotel pool is approximately the size
of our lives anyway."

Indecency is a hauntingly emotional collection of poetry, dealing with issues of blackness, queerness, love and loss. It’s stunningly written and the motif of violence (self-inflicted, inflicted upon others) is explored, not just through the language Reed uses, but also in the form of his poems. Orientation, for example, is in the form of a steering wheel, where thoughts of self-doubt, violence and repetitions of seemingly weird phrases "if he hollers let him go eeny meany miney mo" are entangled together to form a circular shape, underlining the constant intrusive thoughts that plague the persona. Other poems were similarly well written, with my favourites being Retrograde, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel and To Every F*ggot Who Pulverized Me For Being A F*ggot among others. While parts of this collection would likely come across as esoteric, most poems struck a chord within me, and would likely do the same for anyone who's felt that same feeling of unrestrained violence and grief that accompanies what it means to be LGBTQ+ or black.