User:Brotherfable/Scott Bailey (American Poet)

Scott Bailey (born 1975) is an American Poet and the author of Thus Spake Gigolo published by NYQ Books. He grew up in Raleigh, Mississippi, in a family of preachers and carpenters. His poems and cotranslations of Latin American Poets have appeared in journals, such as "The Adirondack Review," "Chelsea,” “The Cortland Review," "Exquisite Corpse," “Indiana Review,” "The Journal," "Meridian," "New York Quarterly," “Poetry International,” “Prism International,” and "Verse Daily,” among others. His degrees include a B.A. in English, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University, and a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University.  Bailey has received fellowships from Florida State University, The Mississippi Arts Commission, New York University, and The Valparaiso Foundation in Spain.

His debut collection of poems Thus Spake Gigolo charts the course of a speaker coming-of-age in rural South Mississippi, a world that is sublime and terrifying, but these poems are not limited to one landscape, region or approach. If this collection has a hero, it is Gigolo who confesses his hand-bitten tale of survival, navigating the difficulties of his inevitable frail natures, holding his fist up to what he dreams and lives for. He speaks of the wounds that must be spoken of. He speaks of the correspondence of nature, the marvels of nature. He perseveres adversity, he celebrates adversity, he portrays a speaker's evolution—whole yet broken, dying yet loving—alive at its end.

Regarding the description of Thus Spake Gigolo, The American Poet David Kirby writes, "The penniless spawn of hell-fire spewing evangelicals, Gigolo hotfoots it to the one city where a young man can get paid as long as he's willing to do anything: New Orleans. A Dante in hot pants and platform heels, Gigolo is at his most moving when he describes the world he came from, one of farm life, jail time, and church, church, church, all in the company of characters so odd that Flannery O'Connor would have shaken her head and said, "They're too weird for me." Like cherry bombs, these poems startle, illuminate, and make you cackle with delight as you say, "Awright! Fire up another!"

The Romanian-born American Poet Andrei Codrescu writes, "Few poets have signaled, from the inside of their debasement, the commerce of the body for sale, leaving out nothing, not even the luciferic joy at the bottom of the well. The chains of Scott Bailey's Gigolo have dragged themselves over the ruined landscape of the city, leaving in their wake the words in this book."

The American Novelist Edmund White writes, "Scott Bailey has a distinctive voice. He is Southern, religious, and a homo speaking about poverty, hard-ons and damnation. His persona Gigolo blew me on every poem. His mouth, I mean, his flexible voice is worthy of your attention."