A History of the Unmarried - Softcover

Mills, Stephen S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937420795 ISBN 13: 9781937420796

Publisher: Sibling Rivalry Press, LLC, 2014

Synopsis

In A History of the Unmarried, Lambda Award winner Stephen S. Mills questions the idea of marriage--as a right, as a relationship, as a contract. Mills juxtaposes the lives of housewives--from his mother to Mad Men's Betty Draper--with the lives of gay men--from Raymond Burr, to Frank O'Hara, to the poet himself. He explores his own conflicting thoughts about marriage against the backdrop of the political fight for marriage equality over the last decade. He asks, "...what does it mean to become / a housewife voluntarily? /.../ And what does it mean to be married / yet remain queer?"

About this title

From the Back Cover

"A History of the Unmarried is incredibly elastic and immediate. Reading these poems is like having a cocktail with January Jones at the Stonewall Inn of the future with an all-inclusive America."

--Jillian Weise, author of The Amputee's Guide to Sex 

"Prediction: You will love A History of the Unmarried if you are married, or ambivalent about marriage, or hate the idea of marriage, or hope to be married someday. There is something sincere and surprising here for you, whatever your gender or orientation: if you have ever been in a long-term relationship, or ever hope to be; if you are a fan of Mad Men, old movies, Perry Mason, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, and/or Jackson Pollock; if you have ever left the place you came from; if you have ever felt 'the world/outside desperate to define [you].' I predict you'll laugh out loud at lines like these: 'Daniel Craig is hotter than Ted Hughes" and "(GLAAD's not going to like that I just said that).' Mills is unflinching in his honesty and in his refusal to accept easy answers. I predict you'll finish this book mulling on questions for our time ('what does it mean to be married/ yet remain queer?') and questions for all time ('Some things/ are worth dying for, I suppose, but which things?'). I predict you won't be able to put this book down."
--Julie Marie Wade, author of Postage Due: Poems & Prose Poems and When I Was Straight

"A History of the Unmarried is a book about love and otherness, a chronicle of a complex history of a poet and his--for better, for worse--beloved. These poems are constructed with crystal images and enormous heart. The cumulative effect is a testament to how we connect and want and see one another, even when the world doesn't see us (or it does, and we don't want it to). Stephen Mills' poems put on paper a complicated love that is stronger than anything that can be made legal by a piece of paper, a love about 'two men / choosing to stay.'"

--Aaron Smith, author of Appetite

About the Author

Stephen S. Mills holds an MFA from Florida State University. His poems have appeared in The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Antioch Review, The Los Angeles Review, Knockout, Ganymede, Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, ASSARACUS, New Mexico Poetry Review, Mary, and others. He is the author of HE DO THE GAY MAN IN DIFFERENT VOICES (2012) and A HISTORY OF THE UNMARRIED (2014), both published by Sibling Rivalry Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sibling Rivalry Press, LLC
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1937420795
• ISBN 13: 9781937420796
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 92