Duct-Taped Roses
By Billeh Nickerson
In Duct-Taped Roses, Billeh Nickerson shares heartbreaks and offers odes and elegies in reflections on family, community, life, and loss.
As a bush pilot, Nickerson's father would duct-tape his planes to keep them flying. The poignancy of his relationship with his father is ... Read more
Overview
In Duct-Taped Roses, Billeh Nickerson shares heartbreaks and offers odes and elegies in reflections on family, community, life, and loss.
As a bush pilot, Nickerson's father would duct-tape his planes to keep them flying. The poignancy of his relationship with his father is celebrated here in the long poem "Skies. " Other poems reminisce about love and the complex resiliency of gay men.
Through his signature irreverence, honesty and wit, Nickerson explores what can be repaired, what must be celebrated, and what—inevitably—is lost to time.
Billeh Nickerson
Billeh Nickerson is the author of six books, including Artificial Cherry, which was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award. He a past Editor of both Event and Prism International, and co-editor of the groundbreaking anthology Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets. He lives and works in Vancouver where he is the co-chair of the Creative Writing department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Reviews
"Nickerson’s poems are understated and accomplished, shifting between modes of elegy and humorous punchlines with a voice that is distinct and intimate, recalling the playful, confessional poetry of Dorothea Lasky and the candour of Wayne Koestenbaum. Duct-Taped Roses is Nickerson’s best yet. " —Hamilton Review of Books
"This is a solid collection by a writer in mid-career stride: it’s got some poems that have appeared elsewhere, some new ones, a nice homage to his queer lineage, the personal nods we’ve come to expect with the unflinching honesty (even crassness) that makes Billeh Billeh. " —Plenitude
"[Nickerson's] mind is a wonder, and lucky for us, he's put so many wonderful thoughts from it onto these pages. " —The Miramichi Reader
"Nickerson looks up at his community from the gutter, not down from the condo loft–and therefore, as Wilde taught us, he can also see the stars. " —R. M. Vaughan