Real Man Would Have a Gun

Stacey Waite is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is the author of Teaching Queer: Radical Possibilities for Writing and Knowing as well as several previous collections of poems, including Butch Geography and the lake has no saint.

"A Real Man Would Have a Gun believes in poetry's ability to salve and save. In it, Stacey Waite walks a tight rope of language in these well-wrought poems that celebrate and question gender as much as they serve to cherish family. And these poems know no bounds. They chat and scream and whisper—and they even dance if you count the Cupid Shuffle. This is a brilliant beauty of a book." - Jericho Brown, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Tradition"This book isn't only bold, it's tender and broken and more complex than the tired trope of 'queer triumph.' This book is about family and memory and fuckups through the eyes of a poet who understands that sometimes you can't extinguish rage; it just 'turn[s] into / a fire of a different kind.' We all can see ourselves in this book's magnificent glow." - Aaron Smith, author of Stop Lying: Poems"I will never get over the poems of Stacey Waite—and I don't want to. A Real Man Would Have a Gun is both slow burn and bright flame, lyric compression and narrative expansion, a book that breaks childhood and parenthood, gender and sexuality—embodiment itself—freshly and sharply open." - Julie Marie Wade, author of Skirted

• Part OneHonest PoemMothers and MenScar1986Masculinity IThe Four Nights She’s GoneQueer Body in Summer, 1989Karen BerryThe Tie That BindsMasculinity IIBeing Queer in High SchoolBoyfriend, 1992Masculinity IIIEverything is EverythingNotes on Matt DamonPart TwoMen Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: We know that guy, and he is not a rapist.Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: She really let herself go.Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: Check out that ass.Masculinity IVMen Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: You’re not going to write poems about your kids now, right?Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: Yeah but, you know, why is she bringing this up now?Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: I forget you’re a woman sometimes.Masculinity VMen Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: You know what I’m saying, right?Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak: Dude, we are going to have to fight them off with sticks.Masculinity VIPart ThreeBathroom PoemGive Us Your PronounsReading QueerMasculinity VIIDeadlockedWhen Butches Shoot PoolThe KillReligious Liberty Accommodations ActMasculinity VIIIThankfully, you will have taught me freedom within constraintsYour FatherSome Notes on FamilyWhen I Imagine the Day of Your BirthLetter to My GrandfatherThe Hit ManA Toast to My Body at Forty-TwoThe Cloud Looks Like a Breaking WaveMasculinity IXAcknowledgements