poems by
Edward Debonis
Here's what Reviewers are saying:
Lambda Book Report
Edward DeBonis, a writer and activist who is involved with the organizations
Dignity and Marriage Equality, has published a meaningful debut collection
of poems, many of which appeared in literary journals and magazine such as
A&U, Insomnia, and Hawaii Review. He writes about themes
and issues that many LGBT folks can relate to—AIDS, friendship, love,
lust, urban living, father-son relationships, family illness, sissiness,
Catholicism and the death of Matthew Shepherd. The poems in
Homonym are starkly real and mostly autobiographical, but they
are never self-absorbed.
In the prologue, DeBonis explains, "All words are homonyms.
They mean different things to different people. They mean different things
to the same person at different times of their lives." Some of his poems
are written in hindsight ten or twenty years after a person or incident touched
him. As a result, there is an added layer of depth and wisdom.
Some of the best poems in the collection are about family.
In "Donnas," DeBonis pays tribute to his younger sister and observes that
his partner and one of their close friends also have Donnas in their lives:
...Everywhere, traces
of her, like clouds, form momentary
faces, find me, then disappear. I know
it's her, though I barely knew her.
Specific dates, places and times make their way
into many of the poems, especially the ones about loss of family and friends.
Details such as "At Penn Station the next morning," "It's twelve twelve on
June eleventh," "Tuesday morning" and "it's 31 degrees" add texture and richness
to stories about services, hospitals and illness. They also convey anger,
sadness and hope.
Even a comma can make all the difference in a poem,
and it is obvious the amount of craft DeBonis brings to each line. In "Poetry,
You Disgust Me," DeBonis is having an innocuous conversation with a fellow
lawyer:
...What are you working on?"
"Poetry," I said.
"You disgust me."
Even with all the realism, there is a wonderful lyricism, too. Since many of the poems are about AIDS, it's not surprising that he finds meaning in skin, bone, veins, heads, fingers and bony cheeks. In "Brain Stem," he observes his friend on an airplane moving his scalp back and forth every fifteen or twenty seconds without moving his head.
"As you wrinkle your brow, the back of your
scalp moves like two waves, cresting at the
center of the back of your head...."
And because he does write so well about the body, there
are a few great poems about sex shops, masturbation and lovers who make dogs
howl. There's also the story about Jason, an innocuous friendship between
DeBonis and a much younger man, that raises a few eyebrows. But mostly, he
writes about the love he's found with his husband, Vincent, and with Dignity,
the LGBT Catholic group. Catholicism is a running theme through the book
as DeBonis traces his life from being an altar boy to getting married to
Vincent in a Catholic ceremony. The epilogue includes The New York Times
article that announced their marriage.
— Jane Van Ingen, Lambda Book Report
Andrew Wolter::
Homonym is a word pronounced the same as another, but spelled differently.
Edward DeBonis takes the definition to an entirely imaginative level in his
debut book of poetry entitled Homonym.
This is not your typical book of poetry. You will not
find rhyming passages nor formulated stanzas. What the reader does discover,
in Homonym, is a richly descriptive and tragically sincere
book of lyrical prose depicting one man's journey as he searches for his
identity and the adversities he witnesses while on his path toward hope.
Unlike many other books of poetry, the poems in
Homonym are organized in a fashion to be read one after another. Each
poem can be compared to a snapshot taken from a photo album, as the reader
becomes effortlessly magnetized to a narrative that, ultimately, creates
a full portrait of Mr. DeBonis' life from fragile child to completed man.
Poems such as "Another Natural," "Waltzing With Dad,"
and "The Time of Your Life" represent the author's inexorable love for his
father. "Scarecrow" and "Charlie Chaplin" bravely portray haunting imagery
revolving around the last minutes of Matthew Shepard's life.
Taking it a step further with his audacious voice, Mr.
DeBonis successfully paints a canvas of the aftermath of the Sept.1l attacks
in "New Ash" and "Homonym." In his poems that confront the subjects of AIDS,
DeBonis' voice and style remain thoughtful as he realistically describes
the loss of loved ones. Yet, these are but a few of the myriad topics ocvered
in Homonym. Other poems express the author's recollection of
past lovers, mysterious towns, erotic fantasies, and, eventually, his soul
mate. The poet's passion for the Catholic religion is also woven into his
poretry and brings forth a realistic voice readers can identify with.
Edward DeBonis' poetry dances off the pages of
Homonym and takes the reader on a journey filled with love,
anger, and hope. THe author successfully uses his daring style and unrelenting
voice to show us how he has accepted the loss of loved ones, dealt with
catastrophic tragedies, and found the love of his life in a world where art
imitates reality. His mesmerizing works prove that we all perceive life in
a different manner but, in the end, it can be summed up in one view--just
like a homonym.
--- X-Factor, Phoenix
Homonym is about family and one man's search. It is full of
touching portraits of a man in a world not his own, where his brothers are
dying daily. And when Mr. DeBonis writes about his own struggle to declare
his freedom and claim his identity, and the pain he encounters in the process,
his work is at its best: "His fingers, like Jerusalem artichokes, jagged,
thick, broken by minor league balls then healed, stronger than the dangling
branches of my own hands". No one knows better the stranded, empty beach
feeling of a person trapped outside his own identity. Like exotic flowers,
the poems of Ed Debonis reach out from the page, fold us in their gentle
petals, take us in that long homeward path before dark. Aside from the journey
we are privileged to view, there is craft and excellence in these poems.
More often than not, the arrows fall true in the bull's eye of the heart.
---Walter Griffin, Former Master Poet in Residence
Georgia Council for the Arts & Humanities
In Homonym, Edward DeBonis reveals an uncannily beautiful,
lyrical and caring voice as he confronts the AIDS plague. Some of the best
poems are those commemorating Matthew Shepard, slaughtered by homophobes.
— Robert Peters, Poet, Playwright, Critic
Thoughtful, tender, Eddie DeBonis' poems cut down hypocrisy and offer deliberate,
caring witness in its place. He shows us ways to welcome death, love, and
loss, and leaves us evidence of just how our lives are joined, torn apart.
He brings us raw and sweet stories of father love, of all who are caught
in the scourge of AIDS, and of deep kinship between races, between generations,
inside and outside traditional family. His is a lyrical voice—hopeful
and arcing—rendering moments of grace in each other's presence. An honest
and moving first book from a poet who knows how to treasure "the sweetest"
in all its forms, so that one name becomes the same for
all—HOMONYM.
— Beatrix Gates, Poet
 See also www.homonym.net |
Introduction by Author
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