Rickey Laurentiis

Rickey Laurentiis covers many different social issues throughout his collection titled Boy with Thorn. While these issues are not explicitly connected to one another by time period or type of trauma, Laurentiis bridges a gap between these events. Laurentius draws inspiration from a wide span of material. He utilizes biblical stories, Greek myth and art, Egyptian myth, slavery, or everyday abuses, if one can refer to them in such a way without making them seem mundane. Laurentiis struggles with the idea that historical events have objective truths about them, yet they are still shaped through people’s memory and imaginations. This allows for everyone’s own experience to transform their relationship with these events. Through this collection

By avoiding quotation marks, he avoids taking the liberty of claiming this as factual. He uses a similar tactic in “Writing an Elegy.” This is a poem about Spanish moss which is both used as a stereotype of the south but is also very prevalent in certain parts of the south, including New Orleans, where Laurentiis has spent a lot of time. In the poem, Laurentiis addresses one of the few tales that were created in order to explain the origin of this strange plant. This particular tale says that a Spanish conquistador bought a native woman to marry, but she was scared of him, so she ran into a tree. He tried to follow her, and when she jumped out of the tree into the river, he attempted to jump too, but his beard got stuck into the tree, which broke his neck and killing him. (Booth) Laurentiis writes, “If not for his lust, his sickness to chase, to claim her; if not for that Native woman’s quick intelligence, out-climbing…” (Laurentiis 27) This dialogue is from the perspective of the friends of the Spanish man who died. This use of italics rather than quotation marks is doing two things. It recognizes that this story is a fable, and not factual to begin with, but it also recognizes Laurentiis’ own addition into the legend. He continues to remind the audience of the lack of factual truth in the words people are saying through dialogue throughout his entire

He interprets the painting using his experience and goes as far as inserting himself into the piece. Many have interpreted the painting as being related to female genitalia, and the speaker in this poem sees a similar image in the painting and has an interesting response due to his implied sexuality. “Now anything could / go in there: a fist, veined, fat. / A body. And here runs the blood / through the body, deep, watery. / And here runs the message in the blood: / This is it – fuck her fag like you’re supposed to.” (Laurentiis 9) In this painting the speaker sees what society expects of him, he imagines what his biological and physical response should be to the female body, even through the painting of a flower. These expectations are expressed in the lines, “I should want to fit into it, stand up in it, / rest, as would any beast inside a stable. / I should want to own it, force it mine, / to know it is my nature, and of / course don’t I? Why shouldn’t I want?” (Laurentiis 9) Even if this is not from a man who identifies as queer, Laurentiis is commenting on the fact that if he does not perform in a certain way, primarily by claiming ownership over another human being, then that implies something about his sexuality. He talks about the expectation that men face today, and this expectation is not something that is internal or intrinsic,