All I Want: On Alex Dimitrov's "Love and Other Poems"

Alex Dimitrov | Love and Other Poems | Copper Canyon Press | 2021 | 119 Pages

All I want is boundless love.

                     -Frank O’Hara

This quotation serves as the epigraph to Alex Dimitrov’s much-anticipated third book of poetry, Love and Other Poems. This collection—in a conversational style akin to Ross Gay’s and Frank O’Hara’s—at its core is a love poem: to the self, to the reader, to poetry, to New York City—to which the collection is dedicated—to O’Hara, and to life itself. Throughout this book, Dimitrov reflects on his enduring love for life with refreshing optimism; the poem “Love” is at the center of this collection and is a 10-page litany of feelings and experiences that the poet loves. In a year full of so much tragedy and loss for us all, Love and Other Poems feels more vital than ever in its playfulness, its humor, and its accessibility; it reminds us again and again to see all the beauty in this world and to approach even life’s smallest moments with a sense of wonder.

Dimitrov is hyper-aware of everything’s transience, and he reckons with this inevitability of loss throughout this collection. The poet appears to find comfort, however, in the act of writing, which allows him to give the passing moments a longer life, if not a permanent one. He writes:

The first ending. And knowing it would end

I wanted another. Lover, summer,

pen with which to write it all down.

Indeed, Dimitrov’s desire to write seems to stem in part from his desire for more time. In a wonderfully meta moment of self-awareness, he acknowledges, “I may wake up tomorrow / and write poems / because I’m terrified of dying.” And, just as writing provides a tool to extend the brief instances of beauty, he also uses it to reassure readers that all of life’s difficulties are short-lived. He writes:

I love that we can fail at love and continue to live.

[…]

I love that despite our mistakes this will end.

[…]

 I love that sooner or later we forget even “the important things.”

These are three welcome reminders. Even when something feels devastating, the poet writes that—like everything else—it will pass. This collection works to give readers that comfort as Dimitrov expands on his joys and limits mentioning struggles and mistakes, knowing that these worries “will end.”

Dimitrov’s queerness also is a vital theme in this collection—and it appears to be a source of joy for him. In these poems, Dimitrov addresses the reader as if they were a friend, and the conversational tone immediately makes one think other queer writers who have employed this style—poets like O’Hara, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Pico, and Eileen Myles. As the collection continues, it becomes clear to readers that Dimitrov’s queerness is a vital aspect of his identity. In the very first poem, he writes, “and by the way, I’m gay. / The Sunset too is homosexual. Readers do not forget this fact: he reminds them through mentions of LGBTQ+ people like Virginia Woolf, Matthew Shepard, and Andy Warhol, and one poem contains a romantic fantasy about River Phoenix.

These allusions to Dimitrov’s sexuality often are ironic, displaying his wit and sense of humor. He writes:

I don’t want to sound unreasonable

but I need to be in love immediately.

[…]

I’m broke and lonely

in Manhattan—though of course

I’ll never say it.

[…]

I’m a very gay runner, you see.

Always checking out dads

and listening to Britney on repeat.

Other times, however, Dimitrov alludes to darker realities that can accompany queerness. He mentions Harvey Milk, for example, who was assassinated, and he writes “A boy / tied to a fence” which instantly brings to mind Matthew Shepard, who, in 1998, was tortured and killed for being gay near Laramie, Wyoming (84). In “New York,” Dimitrov recounts all the places he has cried, writing,

...in so many gay bars

I’m going to list them:

Boiler Room, Eastern Bloc,

Nowhere, Metropolitan

and I could go on but this poem

isn’t about gay crying,

just crying in general.

This collection is filled with humor and optimism, and yet Dimitrov is well-aware, too, of hardship and tragedy. One of the poem’s titles is “PLACES I’VE CONTEMPLATED SUICIDE OR SENT NUDES FROM,” a tongue-and-cheek way of signifying to readers that he has suffered from mental illness. This mention of a past, or perhaps ongoing, struggle returns in the final poem. Dimitrov writes, “I stopped confusing / my body for a weapon." He writes:

This is the part of the poem

where I’m trying to tell you

life is better than death.

Dimitrov is not naïve; he is not ignorant about suffering but rather hyper-aware of it, and it is this awareness that allows him to find so much solace in the small and beautiful moments: a work of art, the month of October, driving down the highway, or a late-night diner-meal with friends. He knows firsthand about struggle and yet maintains his optimism and sense of wonder and urges his readers to do the same. With charming wit and specificity, Dimitrov reminds readers that “this, too, shall pass”; this collection seems to expand on Rainer Maria Rilke's "Go to the Limits of Your Longing," wherein Rilke writes: "Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final." Dimitrov knows not to dwell on the tragic, urging readers instead to cherish our joys, small pockets of mercy amid loss. This year, often it feels as if there is more loss than ever; as such, this collection feels necessary, eager to remind us that things will get better. “How again after months,” Dimitrov writes, “there is awe.”