Speaker

The majority of the poems collected in Punks: New & Selected Poems are dictated by the first person point of view of a single speaker. This speaker first appears in the opening poem from “Playland”: “Mission and Outpost.” In this piece, the speaker is standing “Beneath the awning of the Leland . . . rolling / from ball to heel on [his] not-sore foot, waiting” (3). Throughout his time waiting and watching, the speaker begins reflecting on his past life. This opening piece therefore introduces the reader to the speaker, his sensibilities, and his forthcoming considerations throughout the subsequent sections.

Indeed, throughout the collection’s sections “Playland,” “The Lost World,” and “Ten Things I Do Every Day,” the reader learns more and more about the speaker’s identity. He is a Black, queer man. He has lived or spent time in cities including Boston, Massachusetts, New York, New York, Los Angeles, California, and Newark...