spuytenduyvil

Erik is a wordsmith of the highest caliber:  their passion and erudition radiate from every phrase, each a carefully constructed blade fearlessly peeling back layers of the anatomy of trauma.

     Stephen Susco,

          screenwriter of The Grudge and The Grudge 2

 

 

Erik Fuhrer invents a new discipline in Gellar Studies: part stan culture, part parasocial BFF-dom, and a whole lot of deep introspection about the intersection of lived experience and celluloid. Each poem here honors either Sarah Michelle Gellar herself or an iconic role from her filmography, weaving her story together with the speaker’s. In doing so, these poems celebrate “the blood we chose,” as Fuhrer writes, “not the blood we were given.” Gellar—a reluctant scream queen whose oeuvre skews toward horror—and the traumas of her characters echo in the abuse, violence, and shame of the speaker’s childhood and adolescence. Queer readers will innately understand this alchemy of fandom and pain, the way in which we come to understand “what is this world but bruises.” The way we find our solace in she who overcomes. Fuhrer’s spare language crackles with beauty, grace, and love cast in arresting imagery, even in the shadow of a speaker whose life withheld these same essential resources.”

       Charles Jensen,

             author of Instructions between Takeoff and Landing