Sexiest Poem Award Goes to Rob Halpern

Is it the end of the year yet? It should be, what with CAConrad dishing out The Sexiest Poem Award. This year's winner: Rob Halpern for Music for Porn (Nightboat Books). You might be wondering what The Sexiest Poem Award is. Well, "The Sexiest Poem Award is given annually to a finely crafted poem demonstrating a fearlessness which confronts injustice. POLITICAL POEMS ARE SEXY!" Of Music for Porn, Conrad writes:

If there is anywhere presently where the machinations of how we are carefully FED the most brutal possible acts of our species it is with faggots and war. The delicate palate of the American Left for inclusivity, albeit through assimilation, cannot negotiate taking a stand against war if it means disallowing faggots their God-given right to kill Arabs with pride. Apparently nothing can calm a nervous populace like a politically correct militia. Halpern does not write overtly about any of these things I say, it’s the historical timing of the publication I note.

The ACUTE timing of Halpern’s book with gay genocide (silent genocide) in American-occupied Iraq, a genocide American homosexual soldiers (closeted or not) helped create, perpetuate, ignore, and fester. Halpern’s book has 9 sections, 9 the indestructible number, each section a departure from the previous section’s form, but never from the unyielding examinations a poet worth their salt will make. Rob Halpern has found his strength in the susceptibility to harm. To linger over the wound is to imagine any hole as an invitation.

Congrats to Rob! Make the jump to read excerpts from the book and to see winners from years past.