Drew Pisarra’s Periodic Boyfriends

REVIEW BY PUMA PERL | I never got good grades in science. I could grasp a bit of biology, as long as they left photosynthesis out of the picture, which they never did. Each year, from elementary school though college, I stumbled through final exams, unable to remember the steps needed to turn energy into food. Chemistry and physics remained mysterious subjects I would not even approach. And the periodic table of elements? You must be kidding.

When I learned of Drew Pisarra’s latest book, Periodic Boyfriends (click here to purchase), I assumed the title indicated occasional lovers and intermittent interludes, despite the beakers and measuring tools on the cool pink and blue cover (book design by Sasha Sinclair). It took a bit of reading to connect the dots: 118 elements make up the periodic table, an organizing tool widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences. (See how smart I’ve become?) Pissara links each component to a boyfriend, a hookup, sometimes a person he’s longed for but never even touched—118 pieces, each one titled by an element exemplifying the chemistry between writer and subject.

The poems run the gamut from sneakily humorous to outright hilarity to loss and longing, and sometimes encompass all of the above in a single entry. All are 14-line sonnets, a form he utilized engagingly in a previous collection, Infinity Standing Up. Some of the sonnets employ internal rhyme schemes, some external, some are Shakespearian; all are passionate, bold, and thematic. There are puns and alliteration and meter, which is not necessarily iambic pentameter, but contains a musicality unique to the writer.

Many of the elements are familiar everyday words, like Oxygen and, in our dysfunctional times, Lithium. I had never heard of some of them, and felt compelled to look them up, because of the unique ways the titles illuminate the poems. I had so much fun doing this, that I began to realize that perhaps I was not “bad” at science; maybe it took a lifetime to find the right teacher, who happens to be one Drew Pisarra, an award-winning monologist and a playwright, as well as a poet.

Getting back to Lithium, as a sizable amount of the population has:

You’re depressed, I get it, the poem begins, followed by a Kurt Cobain reference and a closing couplet:

…I wish I could digest the hurt 

as quickly as you downed those pink-and-white 

pills. Our bond has been chemically reduced!

You’ve found happiness whilst I’m unseduced!

“Neon” takes us to the lights of Las Vegas:

…Sin City is one hot mess

of cheap brunches, rushed weddings, stained box springs,

slot machines, false teeth, fake breasts, and faux bling.

“Aluminum” also ends with a couplet in line with the element:

I wince at tin-ear jests you recreate.

If you’re my choice, I’d rather masturbate.

Of course, many of the properties, while not necessarily obscure, are less obvious in the references. It’s clear that Pisarra has done his homework researching them. Take, for instance, “Carbon.” This nonmetallic property is unique in its ability to form strongly bonded chains, sealed off by hydrogen atoms, and the sonnet speaks to the chains of addiction and codependent love. It is tightly metered, contains three rhyming couplets, and suggests the elements of carbon throughout.

Can I see your reflection in a spoon?

I certainly tried when you left the room

for motives unstated. And yet I knew

what was going on. The back of the spoon

was black; I’d met these friends of yours before

or friends like them. They were all of a type:

tall, thin, bad skin, and a smell that was ripe

and wrong. Plus they were defiantly poor.

Still I clung to your long lean arms or shoved

my nose in your silv’ry hair whenever

I spooned you from behind to stem the cold

that creeped between us. How I ached to hold

onto what you shrugged into “whatever”

once your drugs kicked in, leaving me unloved.

A property that I had never before heard of is Vanadium, an elemental metal rarely found in nature. It is generally used as a steel additive and has a higher hardness than most metals. With that, let the sonnet speak for itself:

It’s not that you make me feel unspecial;

It’s more that you’re coupling with so many

men that I doubt outside the carnal,

you fully see me. Do I have any

moles? Not that such traits are what make us

unique and I did feel seen when you looked

at me, all deep. For now, let’s not discuss

your licentiousness or the ways I took 

you in. The body is built to consume;

one’s inner essence is hard to ingest.

Our sole connection’s been in the bedroom

with one exception. At your behest,

I sat front row for a beautiful dance

you did for downtowners. Again, no pants.

As captivated as I was by the form and the connection of the elements, what makes this collection most endearing to me are the visions of love, long-lasting or fleeting, and the capture of free-wheeling emotion in a structured format. These sonnets feel meant to be read and listened to aloud—and they will be soon (Information below for live performance and streaming.) If you miss it, do what I did: Read to your reflection, read to the dog. Read to another human. And if they don’t give you diamonds in appreciation, at the very least they will gift you with zirconium!*

*When properly cut, zircons can make very convincing diamond substitutes and are actually rarer than diamonds.

Reading and Live Streaming:

Sunday, June 18, 5pm-6pm at the Bureau of General Service—Queer Division / Room 210 of the LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street. Books will be available for purchase. For more information on the event, click here. To purchase “Periodic Boyfriends,” click here.

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