Review by Mindy Kronenberg
I must confess that I was intrigued by the title of this book when selecting it for review. Not for any perceived sensational contents or promise of provocative odyssey, but its implied cleverness and earnest presentation in the complex and poignant aspects of intimacy and gender identity, and how our own humanity depends on empathy and appreciation for the diverse and moving personal journeys of others. Poetry has proven to be an ideal platform for painful, pleasurable, puzzling, and revelatory discoveries in our lives. Subhaga Crystal Bacon deftly and defiantly shares private moments and memories from their life—in eloquently wrought poems that capture the drama of self-discovery through a timeline of challenges and rights-of-passage, forbidden desire, and recovered trauma, from childhood to mature adult.
One poem, with the irresistible title “Abecedarian of a Gender Dysphoric Childhood,” (p. 32) provides a tale of the poet’s sexual evolution:
As soon as I knew anything of myself, I knew that I was a
Boy, despite the ample evidence of clothing and parts to the
Contrary. I had a firm commitment to this identity:
Dressing and—within myself—being like my father at
Every turn. Weekly trips to the grocery store, always a
Family event, I wore the hand-me-down jeans and shirts
Gotten from my older brother: Johnny Tremain! And
Hung my hands from beltless loops by the thumbs.
I was sure about who I was those first ten years. …
There are early scenarios that create honest and astute portraits of family members, revealing distinctive and descriptive histories with endearing and alarming qualities that influenced the poet’s coming of age experience. These include poems that present the complexity of their parents’ dynamic, and are redolent of Sharon Olds’ early familial poems (The Dead and the Living, The Father) and revealed through several works. We meet the poet’s mother, a woman who impressed upon her children “I wanted all three of you,” who was married and then raised a son alone before meeting the poet’s father, who was “the one from the gas pumps, from the iron foundry, American made with his brush cut and good intentions…” (“Creation Story,” p. 2). Their mother could be intimidating with a simple gesture, (“All I Have to Do is Look at Her” p. 7):
my mother bragged, proud of her parenting, the perfected look.
The look that said: Don’t you dare. Don’t even think about it.
What are you, stupid? The look that froze us from across a room.
And yet also, when the young poet brought home a pigeon shot with a BB gun, (“Pigeon: Symbol of Love, Loyalty, and Forgiveness,” p. 8) they remember that
…she washed the wound
under the tap, its strong wings
close to its body, sprayed it with Bactine
that we used on our own scrapes.
Her tenderness still surprises me.
Memory also exists in darker guises, the inability of family to accept their true nature, and a slowly recovered incident of sexual abuse in early childhood (“you do not do, you do not do / Anymore, black shoe,” p. 15 ; “Grandfather,” p. 63). In “Naming and Claiming,” p. 74, the poet declares
Memory is a chimera. What’s buried in the mind
dwells quietly in the body. What I recalled of trespass
against my innocence has little content, yet nudges me
in its awakening to bring me too, awake; vigilant.
Through pain and persistence, grace and grit, there is personal redemption (from “The Book Speaks,” p. 80):
Here I find you. Innocent.
Vessel of shame and rage.
I open you. Unbutton your genes.
You are warrior. Let loose your hair.
Take up the space you crave.
Now, do you see?
You can love what you are
without flinching.
The poems in A Brief History of My Sex Life bravely, skillfully build a journey worth sharing and celebrating.
A Brief History of My Sex Life by Subhaga Crystal Bacon
Lily Poetry Review Books, 2025
978-1957755618
Mindy Kronenberg is an award-winning poet and writer. She teaches writing, literature, and arts subjects at SUNY Empire State University, is editor of Oberon poetry magazine, and the author of Dismantling the Playground (Birnham Wood), Images of America: Miller Place (Arcadia), and OPEN, an illustrated poetry book (Clare Songbirds Publishers). She was the first Literature Ambassador of the Long Island Poetry & Literary Repository (2024-26), and is poetry curator for the Sculpture on the Trail exhibit for the Center for Environmental Education and Discovery (CEED).