One last ditch

Poetry. LGBT Studies. Erik JM Schneider says that he was professionally trained to draw connections between things which have absolutely nothing in common. In ONE LAST DITCH, he makes this education concrete, mixing prose with lyricism while entwining cultural critique and autobiography, gender studies and stories about his cats. The dialect of ONE LAST DITCH is that of a multi-regional locality mixed with the perversely precise rhythms of a lifetime scholar. Schneider lopes through today's sketches of the day before, pasting together often harrowing scenes in alcohol, drugs, men's rooms, sex, and despair. Underneath it all a body pulses and trembles, a body especially complicated by a transition between genders, but also a body that will achieve glimpses of peace and communion at unexpected moments. This volume is Schneider's debut in American letters, brought to the public stage by Lyn Hejinian, director at Atelos. His affinities with Language poetry are clear in this highly associative, abstract work, which yet remains one of exquisite and eccentric intimacy.