Identity through a Kaleidoscope: A Review of Dani Putney’s “Salamat sa Intersectionality”
By David Bell
The choice to write about ourselves in poetry is a rather interesting one; within modernist works such as Elliott’s ‘The Wasteland’ the multiple perspectives stand in contrast to the individualistic focus in the works of beat poets such as Frank O’Hara, and later in the works of the language poet Lynn Hejinian. ‘Salamat sa Intersectionality’ by Dani Putney seems to capture all of this as the collection fuses inherent musicality, which likely stems from Dani’s own ability as a pianist, merging it with a strong sense of the poet as a personal historian. The collection revolves around Dani’s identity as a queer, non-binary, mixed race, Filipinx person. It is a triptych whose three sections are entitled ‘Youthful Absolution’, ‘Salted Pores’ and ‘Taken Root’, leading us through the ups and downs within identity-defining moments that are brought together within the final section, which show these elements intersect.
The first poem in the collection - ‘Mountain Coda’ - appears before the first section and functions as a prologue. The piece is a creation story, in which the poet’s body and the crafting of a mountain range are brought into existence as one. As the title suggests the poem rings with music and is wonderful to read aloud:
crack my bones into place.
Let valleys echo my spine,
lead coda one, two along thoracic vertebrae,
imbue my joints with musical Sierra.
There is a feeling that the author was reveling in writing about themself, a process which comes across as both painful and beautifully comforting. The poem is a fantastic introduction and resonates throughout the collection.
‘Youthful absolution’ presents a selection of poems which portray moments from the author's childhood and teen years. This begins with the pieces ‘Potato Bugs’ and ‘Sanctuary’, through which we are eased into Dani’s past, with stories of a blossoming friendship and allusions to the collection’s darker themes.
I looked at the canopy,
branches and leaves obscuring
gray sky. Father’s slurs—
fairies and stick bundles—
shed from my skin
as detritus teardrops.
This tension between Dani and their father remains constant throughout this section and the poem ‘Father’s Estate’ offers up a suggestion of male sexual oppression which becomes a much more prominent theme in later poems.
Within the poem ‘My Mother was a Picture Bride’ we see the author exploring their gender at a young age as they try on their mother’s clothes. Here we see elements of the author's gender identity and Filipinx heritage come together.
I was his bride
middle-aged face above me
Wait-
ing to be fucked
womb filled with imperialism-turned-
globalization but I wanted it
more than future children know
more than parents who paid to place
my body in American ads
The way the piece deals with the intersection between history and the present as well as the way Putney’s poetry sounds puts me in mind of the work of Michael S. Harper, as history seeps into the present and is merged with the current moment through some wonderful phrasing.
The second section of the collection, ‘Salted Pores’, explores the author's relationships, whether more established or simple sexual flings. Here we see much of the timidity present within some of the first section slip away, replaced by this confidence driven by sexual desire.
I want to behold him
in nothing but boots and Cattleman,
sunburnt skin brined,
dirty-blond chest hair
reflected in porch light.
Here and throughout the collection the American West is forever present, existing as a near-constant backdrop which is both a place of solace and a harsh environment.
The poems ‘Mantis’ and ‘Salt’ see the author revel in their sexual power as they state “A tiny kiss behind the ear: all it takes to make a grown man / melt”, while ‘Worknight Tango’ and ‘They Call It “LGBT Family Building”’ provide us with a view of more established relationships and domesticity. What I found interesting about this section is how Dani is a viewer to the sexual repression of the men they are writing about as they state “Again, I play teacher,/ helping middle-aged men relearn pleasure / like boys discovering masturbation”, or in the poem ‘Dollhouse’ when a man the author has been having sexual relations with ends their relationship to return to his pregnant wife. Many of the poems throughout ‘Salted Pores’ are anecdotal, but Putney makes good use of form and language to add intricate and, in some cases, sinister undertones to the situations being described. As such, many of the poems benefit from second readings despite their initial accessibility, which shows Putney’s ability as a poet.
The collection is rounded off with ‘Taken Root’ in which the poems take a much more meditative and introspective approach, and we see many aspects of the author’s identity brought together and intersect. It begins with the poem ‘Western Mythology’ which portrays the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay American student from the University of Wyoming. I’d like to state at this point that the collection deals with some very traumatic events such as Shepard’s murder as well as allusions to childhood sexual abuse which some readers may find triggering. That said, I found this section of the collection to be the most compelling. Within the poem ‘PDX Queen’, the following lines stood out:
If I say I’m a poet
I become a relic.
If I say I’m trans
my body becomes ars poetica.
This excited me so much when I first read it: how it not only exists as a part of a wonderful introspective piece, but also in how it captures much of what has come before it. ‘Salamat Sa Intersectionality’, a poem which shares its name with the title of the collection, serves to bring elements of Putney’s race and gender together:
I’m not the pioneer un-Woman
or the Cebuana manic pixie dream girl.
My closest relative is Kafka’s monster—
we bleed kaleidoscopes, scare cow(Men), repel suburbia.
Our faces don’t read West-East, M-F.
Man buries us in mud, smiles,
says God bless America.
The fragmentary nature of the piece resonates with early 20th century modernist poetry while also being thoroughly planted in our present moment through the political presence that intersectionality has at this time. These poems do a great job of bringing the collection to a close while also encapsulating much of what takes place throughout. Puntey is a fine poet with an important voice that is presented with a lot of skill and tenderness. 'Salamat Sa Intersectionality' is a fantastic book that has significant importance for our current moment and is very much deserving of a reader's time and attention.
Release Date – May 18, 2021
Publisher: Okay Donkey Press
ISBN13: 9781733244152
Readings of some of the poems from the collection can be found on the Sons and Daughters website as part of the Virtual Reading Series. To watch, click here. Also, ‘Worknight Tango’ and some of Dani Putney’s other work is published on the Sons and Daughters website.
Dani Putney is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx poet from the American West. Their poetry most recently appears in The Fourth River, Glass, LandLocked, and Tule Review, among other publications. They reside amid cowboys in the Nevada desert. To read more of their work, click here or here.
David Bell is a creative writing MA student at Newcastle University, with a focus on poetry and script writing. He is currently working on a collection set in his home town of Prudhoe called 'Prudhoe Banter'. The poems within the collection explore the interaction between the geographical history, personal history and invented history. To read more of his work, click here or here.