(photo courtesy of the artist)
In Another Anthem of Fabulous Survival, the gay poet reveals the complicated yet relatable nuances of his inner world
T.S. Leonard realizes that a poet with the same initials as legendary 20th-century bard T.S. Elliot might feel at least a tad of poetic pressure.
Well, maybe for those other poetry writing T.S.’s, but not Leonard, whose own T.S. (for Thomas Samuel) has only inspired him, starting in his native Kansas City.
“My father wanted us to have literary namesakes, so I was T.S. and my sister was Emily, for Dickenson,” Leonard said in a phone interview from Provincetown, Mass., a stop on a 10-city book tour promoting Another Anthem of Fabulous Survival, Leonard’s debut poetry collection published by Fordham University Press and winner of the Poetic Justice Institute Prize.
“My father showed me that art was an option and it was such a lucky thing,” Leonard said. “I recognize that there are people, if they’re pursuing something creative, they might be in a household where it’s like, ‘That’s not even an option.’ For me, it was definitely more of a kind of door being nudged open.”
Through the years and through one door after another, the self-described “very much Catholic Brookside Kansas Citian” has emerged as a gay poet intent on revealing the complicated yet relatable nuances of his inner world in reaction to the shifting yet stubborn times around him. He reflects upon it all with cleverness and confession, joy and grief, respect and rebellion, temerity and more than a little imaginative time traveling, while skillfully utilizing free-spirited changeups in tone, style and visual presentation.
Sometimes Leonard’s telling word-pictures simply move the heart by depicting a seemingly ordinary situation that is about so much more. Take Starman, which shares a fleeting snippet of conversation in the family car between Leonard and his father, who died when he was 18 and, as Leonard writes in his book’s dedication, “taught me how to sing.”
Bowie’s gay, right? Dad answered, well, no.
But what about his makeup? I pressed. His clothes,
How he moves. Oh, that’s just Bowie. Dad smiled.
He’s just how he is. That’s it. No joke, no warning
against my wondering. I don’t know if he knew
How much it meant to me that he didn’t laugh.
We drove, like every Tuesday, the long way
home, listening together, singing along.
Indeed, on that day, in that car, without ever actually coming out to his father, Leonard felt accepted, as anyone should be for who they really are.
“There’s something about how much was intimated just from that kind of demonstration of love that has remained so guiding and significant to me…” Leonard said. “I hope that the poem kind of gives that to the reader, as well. Maybe it does open the door for them, too.”
Now based in San Francisco, Leonard looks forward to his book-tour return to Kansas City, where he experienced an artistic upbringing that can still get him jazzed.
“I was running around the Crossroads in what now, I think, is considered kind of a golden era of the early 2000s,” Leonard said. “There were so many amazing things happening on this community level that included weird art shows and storefront theater and music that you could just walk up and see.
“Of course, First Fridays were always so much fun, and it really has stuck with me deeply. It really has shaped so much of how I approach the work. It comes from that exposure to people just trying things, people going for things, people doing stuff collaboratively and having the space to do that.”
T.S. Leonard will read/perform poems from his new book, Another Anthem of Fabulous Survival, with live jazz at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, at the Ship, 1221 Union Ave.
