Derrick Austin’s Tenderness — A Review
By Ethan Katz
Derrick Austin’s Tenderness (2021) is a gorgeous collection of poetry, focusing on queerness, race, religion, and mental health, among many critical topics. Austin’s second poetry collection packs a soft (yet tender) punch, and is so fantastically put together as to give the reader the experience of both the new and original and the familiar and safe within every poem. The cover art, “blessed are the mosquitos” by Diedrick Brackens, immediately communicates the duality of the word tenderness, as well as a strange intimacy that permeates the whole collection.
Austin’s poem “Flies” encapsulates the first section of Tenderness fantastically. One of the first things that draws me to this poem is the title. Even from just that very first introduction to the poem, “Flies” establishes itself as important to the primary themes of the collection — given the connection with the cover art. Furthermore, animals — and bugs in particular — play a pretty crucial role in the imagery throughout this collection.
As far as the contents of the poem, they are just as gorgeous as the already incredibly deliberate title suggests. The poem is told in couplets, and the pacing conveys the depression within the poem so beautifully. The poem opens with the couplet “I waste the morning in bed eating Talenti and chocolate-/ covered almonds infused with cannabis.” This couplet perfectly defines the tone and the pace for the rest of the poem. And the image of eating ice cream in bed is familiar — as is the image of being unable (or perhaps unwilling) to get out of bed — but the combination of the two packs a new and original punch, recontextualizing these sort of signs of depression that we as readers are all too used to.
A bit later on, the speaker discusses a comment made by a friend about the speaker’s “type.” This helps further the conversational, meandering tone in the poem, as well as adding to the feeling of solitude throughout. A friend may be texting the speaker about his type, but all of that is theoretical — the conversation is in text, over the phone, and the whole concept of a “type” is based in a theoretical person that both doesn’t exist and simultaneously exists so widely as to be classifiable. In other words, there’s a sort of specificity contrasting with the simultaneously vastness throughout this poem that makes everything feel so distant, perfectly communicating that feeling of solitude and depression that the speaker is feeling. “Flies” is an irresistible, tour-de-force of a poem.
Another poem that really caught my eye comes from the collection is the poem “Sadness Isn’t the Only Muse.” As is evident from the title, this poem represents a shift within the collection, from the dark and depressed waters that feel murky and inescapable, into a bit of a lighter tone. In many ways, this poem paves the way for the lighter and more joyful poems that emerge from this collection, in the third section of the book.
That said, this poem does maintain a bit of solemnity — perhaps “Sadness Isn’t the Only Muse,” but it is still a muse, perhaps even Austin’s primary muse. In this poem, the speaker reflects on the idea of being a parent, something they cannot see themself doing. The speaker remarks “I can’t imagine myself reading bedtime stories/ to a toddler, and I’m older than my father was,” and from there the poem begins to explore the world of those books. “I still love books where nothing happens,” the speaker adds, towards the very end of the poem. In this way, the poem is very reflective and melancholy.
There’s something innately sad about not being able to see oneself as a parent — it feels like less of a conscious choice and more of a lagging behind in life, as suggested by the poem. And yet, that ability to accept the nothingness of books (and perhaps, then, the nothingness that exists in being unable to see oneself as a parent), feels like a final coming to terms with that reality, making peace with being behind. Because the only thing more unnerving than being behind in life is being aware of it, being uncontrollably, unavoidably, and obsessively aware. Thus, the speaker is able to put aside the sadness (though it is still there), and make peace with it — the first step to what seems to be a healing that takes place over the course of the rest of the collection. Interestingly enough, this second section ends on a nine-part, ten page poem called “Son Jarocho,” which explores the speaker’s travels in Mexico.
The poem that haunts me most from the third and final section of Tenderness, is undoubtedly “Lilting” — and how could it not be. This poem provides a glorious sense of closing for the whole collection — it does precisely what an ending should do, skillfully and without showmanship.
There’s also a lot of really beautiful play throughout the poem. The line “Tend your joy,” when read aloud, is easily mistaken for the phrase “tender joy.” The word “hours” appears in the poem, easily heard as “ours,” in the line: “We watch the little theater of hours.” That sense of play brings with it a sense of peace, of joy — the speaker is finally happy enough to play with language rather than to cloak real darkness behind imagery and allusion. In addition, the final line is an absolutely perfect ending — “Let them in. Let them in.” What else does the collection do but let the readers in?
The collection begins on the poem “Days of 2014,” with vague descriptions of the speaker and man (presumably the speaker’s sexual partner), and their bodies. The poem is beautiful, and it is tender in its own way, in the way that hurts. Tender like a wound. By the end of Tenderness, with “Lilting,” the poems still hurt. The wound has not yet disappeared — but the poems have become tender in an additional, different way. Tender like a heart, or like a hand outstretched.
The journey from beginning to end throughout Tenderness is one of the clearest and simultaneously most intelligent that I have seen in a poetry collection. I find myself coming back to certain poems — especially the three specifically mentioned in this article — almost obsessively. Austin has this gorgeous ability to capture these moments of life in poetry, bringing together so many seemingly unrelated threads into a beautiful story.
About the Author
Ethan Katz is second year at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, where he is studying creative writing & theater. He is grateful to have been introduced to the opportunity to write for Matthew’s Place through the Be a Friend Project.
