Poetic Journeys

These poems don't whisper. They bruise, ache, laugh, and want.In Rough Cut Until I Bleed, Charles Harvey delivers a collection of poems that refuse to behave-poems shaped by longing, shame, queer desire, memory, and the body. Here, love is never clean, healing is never complete, and beauty arrives with teeth.A lover's touch becomes a wound. A childhood memory becomes a weapon. A prayer becomes a joke-then a prayer again.Harvey writes in the space where vulnerability meets heat, where joy and damage share the same skin:My hips are big as money bags / and heavy with gold / I am suffering / I am happy.These are poems for anyone who has loved too hard, wanted too deeply, or carried a hunger that refused to quiet itself.Bold. Tender. Unapologetically human.If you like the emotional fire of Danez Smith, the intimacy of Saeed Jones, or the fearless confession of Essex Hemphill, this book belongs on your nightstand.From the BookThat noise beat on my ears. A mad saxophone player filled the room with his insanity. My eyes got all crossed trying to keep up with the digital readout running across the clock's face like a flow of red water. I couldn't stand it anymore. That's when I noticed them.6 9The world has secretsBehind secrets andPuppets ruled by puppetsYou think the game is sixty-nineBut you're a dog, DawgChasing his rainbow tail.Round and round you goUntil you wake too late.The catch is twenty-twoThree strikes and you're out.#HappyMy manhood rotsin the gardenof cabbage leaves.Where children once grewyellow fat dripsand splatters my thighs.My hips are big as money bagsand heavy with goldI am suffering.I am happy.#The poem Apocalypse from this book recently appeared on the blog site NEWVERSENEWS. Charles W. Harvey is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Houston. At UofH he studied fiction under the guidance of Rosellen Brown and Chitra Divakaruni. In 1987, Charles was a 1st place prize recipient of PEN/Discovery for his short story Cheeseburger, which went on to be published in the Ontario Review. In 1989 Charles Harvey was awarded the Cultural Arts Council of Houston Grant for Writers and Artists. Also in 1989 he was a finalist in the MacDonald's Literary Achievement Awards. Charles has been published in Soulfires, Story Magazine SHADE, High Infidelity, The James White Review, and others. He is the author of the novels The Butterfly Killer, The Road to Astroworld, and Antoine's Double Trouble. He is also the author of several story and poetry collections. He also writes for the stage and screen.