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K. Iver
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Short Film Starring My Beloved's Red Bronco Kindle Edition

by K. Iver (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco, selected by Tyehimba Jess for the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry,is an aching tribute to the power and precarity of queer love.

 In small-town Mississippi, before the aughts, a child “assigned ‘woman’” and a boy “forced to call / himself a girl” love one another—from afar, behind closed doors, in motels. The child survives an injurious mother and the beast-shaped men she brings home; the boy becomes a soldier. Years later, the boy—the eponymous beloved, Missy—dies by suicide, kicking up a riptide of memory. This is where K. Iver writes, at the confluence of love poem and elegy.

 “I say to the water if you were here, / you’d be here.” With cinematic precision, they conjure dorm-room landlines, the lingering sweetness of shared candy, a ballet strap and “soft / fingers tracing it, afraid to touch / the skin.” They punctuate depictions of familial abuse and the cruel politics of the Deep South with fairy tales: a girl who endures abuse refusing to grow into a mother who inflicts it herself, queer youth kissing fearlessly, bodies transcending the violence of a reductive gender binary. In these fantasies, “there’s no / reason to leave town no hidden / torches waiting for us to fall asleep.”

 Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco sees us through a particular kind of grief—one so relentless, it’s precious. It presses us, also, to continue advocating for a world in which queer love fantasies become reality and queer love poems “swaddle the impossible / contours of joy.”

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  1. Print length
    77 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Milkweed Editions
  4. Publication date
    January 10, 2023
  5. File size
    3.0 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BR1D5WJF
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Milkweed Editions (January 10, 2023)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 10, 2023
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.0 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 77 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

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K. Iver

K. Iver

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
21 global ratings

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5 out of 5 stars
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Holy crap, what a book! I could not put this debut collection down — the best poetry book I’ve read so far this year. K Iver has no doubt secured their place as an essential poet in today’s literary firmament.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Howard Cowman The Cow Enthusiast
    5.0 out of 5 stars This poetry collection supported me on my healing journey.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    This collection of poems supported my healing journey through grief, loss and trauma. The imagery is stunning and the raw truth of it sheds light and hope on the healing process. These poems show us that we are resilient and we can become whole again.
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  • Courtney LeBlanc
    4.0 out of 5 stars a moving collection of poems
    Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2024
    A collection of poems about gender, desire, queerness, family, loss, grief, and survival.

    from A Medium Performs Your Visit: "Right now, // I'm arguing with belief again. / The everywhereness of candy, // how easily anyone can recall stories / of hard and soft sugar playing // a supporting role. I'm writing / this down hoping you'll see it // and argue back."

    from Missy,: "the nurse wakes me up tells men to eat gives me the medicine I'd once begged my mom for my mom called an exorcist instead I can't tell you that he waited with a large hand on my head a metaphor to take literal shape I emptied my mom's bathroom pharmacy of Benadryl I can't tell you how instinctual the planning how accidental the survival"

    from Fantasy with No Secrets: "Instead of staring at each other on the landing / you touch my face and lean in. My mouth opens // to soft possibility."
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  • C
    5.0 out of 5 stars amazing
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    my favorite poetry book of 2023
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  • Daniel Lassell
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, wow, wow!
    Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Holy crap, what a book! I could not put this debut collection down — the best poetry book I’ve read so far this year. K Iver has no doubt secured their place as an essential poet in today’s literary firmament.
    Customer image
    Daniel Lassell
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Wow, wow, wow!

    Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2023
    Holy crap, what a book! I could not put this debut collection down — the best poetry book I’ve read so far this year. K Iver has no doubt secured their place as an essential poet in today’s literary firmament.
    Images in this review
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    One person found this helpful
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  • Mickie Kennedy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Elegy and Hope: The Poignant Journey of Queer Love
    Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2024
    Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco by K. Iver is a powerful and poignant exploration of queer love and loss, set against the backdrop of small-town Mississippi. Selected for the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, this collection masterfully intertwines themes of grief, identity, and resilience through the lens of a deeply personal narrative. Iver's cinematic precision and lyrical beauty bring to life the tender and tumultuous relationship between the speaker and their beloved, Missy. The poems navigate the harsh realities of familial abuse and societal prejudice while offering moments of transcendent joy and hope. This debut collection is a haunting and heartfelt tribute to the enduring power of love and the resilience of the human spirit.
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  • rk
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous Debut Collection
    Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024
    Much like the ballet referenced throughout, there is an undercurrent of precision here that is both beautiful and brutal. The tension of probing the edges of a nearly healed wound, the relief of finding it sound. The alchemy of grief. Confession. Elegy. Catharsis. The reader, invited into such intimate moments, can't help but be changed as well. I need "they love us here" on a t-shirt.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • John Mccutcheon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Four and a half stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Some strong poems here, mixed with some good and a few weaker. Sometimes, for me, a little confusing, but maybe this is meant.
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  • Chelsea
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, tender poems
    Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Beneath their tenderness, these poems are gorgeously orchestrated narratives in which the speaker elegizes a lost love. They are unexpected and beautiful in their renderings. I loved this book and can't recommend it enough.
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