The poems in Stevie Manning’s debut collection, “Shampoo Boy” (Midnight Mass), buoy the lives of down-and-out misfits with a hard-fought dignity. Depictions of addiction, recovery, in-patient hospital stays and a benzodiazepine-derived calm sit beside accounts of city squalor, hunchbacks, lost Rosa Yemen records and the pains of professional hair styling.
In “Lemon,” a breezy account of the indelicate art of compromise, Manning trains their eye on the socially underperforming “lemons” that populate the world.
“I’ve seen you in bathrooms of fancy restaurants / I’ve seen you in chains along the strip / I’ve seen you barf shawarma / Back into its wrapper / Into your clutch on the TTC / Going Home / I’ve seen you ooze down the drain / When the toilet’s clogged.”
A different kind of linguistic prowess is on display in “Red, Purple, Teal, Gingerbread & Taupe,” an ode to fleeting moments with a lover during a lingering summer.
“Lilies freaked with rust / Slacken their backs against the bars of the vase / Summer sags in the cradle a year makes / A real Year.”
Other poems showcase Manning’s adroitness in handling tone and imagery as if they were equally measured feathers of truth. “Wanted: Vocal Coach” describes the precarity of trans existence with a Wildean coyness — a “trans femme seeks voice beyond the pale” and pleads with a vocal coach to “rid me of this queer, androgynous buzz.” In “Finishing Costs,” the prohibitive financial cost of facial feminization surgery is contrasted with the comparatively low expense of a vaginoplasty procedure.
People who exist on the margins of society tend to be regarded unfavourably by a dominant culture, or at least until they are retroactively classified as trailblazers. Until that time of belated recognition, the only consolation that rare artifacts like “Shampoo Boy” can offer is that one day “They have to thank you / You’ve come to dirty their sky.”
Manning styles hair and works at Bluebird, a trans-run laser hair clinic in Kensington Market. They perform in the NON-OP music group with Dexter Outhit and released the chapbook “Joan Would Say” in 2024 (published by knife fork book).
What did you last read and what made you read it?
Kay Gabriel’s “Perverts”! I’ve never been more excited about a new collection of poetry. She meshes her dreams together with her friends’ and makes jaw-dropping poetry out of it. “Perverts” is one big collective dream, not dissimilar to the legendary parties Kay throws in New York.
What book would your readers be shocked to find in your collection?
I don’t really have anything as shocking as a Harry Potter book or anything, but I do have a lot of John Irving and Calvin and Hobbes that I can’t bring myself to part with from childhood.
When was the last time you devoured a book in one, or very few, sittings?
“Castle Faggot” by Derek McCormack. It’s my all-time comfort book as well as my most devourable. “Castle Faggot” is so disarmingly brilliant, it makes you forget about the polarizing effect it has on anyone seeing you read it in public, due to its title. It makes a great shield; it makes a great lure; it’s a little upside-down book filled with s—t.
Who’s the one author or what’s the one book you’ll never understand, despite the praise?
My boyfriend just moved in with me, and I wanted us to marry our books like that part in Paul Preciado’s “Dysphoria Mundi” (so romantic). In order to do that, I had to part with some of mine. I was just holding “The Maximus Poems” by Charles Olson with both hands because of its sheer weight, reconciling that no matter how hallowed people say this book is, it will never turn green for me.
What’s the one book that has not garnered the success that it deserves?
“Selected Amazon Reviews” by Kevin Killian. Unlike “The Maximus Poems,” this is my kind of tome. A 20-year art project, “writing on the walls of a goliath,” to paraphrase Eileen Myles.
What book would you give anything to read again for the first time?
“Just Kids” by Patti Smith. Without a doubt.
When you were 10 years old, what was your favourite book?
My older sister had the biggest bedroom of three siblings, which included a walk-in closet with a door that locked. I would read her books and try on her clothes; I remember a lot of “Baby-Sitters Club” and “Sweet Valley High.” I really loved Archie Comics up to a probably weird age.
What fictional character would you like to be friends with?
George Miles (from Dennis Cooper’s cycle of books). To see what all the fuss is about.
Do you have a comfort read that you revisit?
See question No. 3.
What was the last book that made you laugh or cry?
Eric Kostiuk Williams recently gifted me a copy of one of his “Hungry Bottom” comic series and the joy it brought me must have added a year to my life. Not so much belly-laughing as enthusiastic cooing at Eric’s young life in Toronto, and the beautiful evolution of such a bonkers artist.
What is the one book you wish you had written?
I was writing undergrad essays for U of T kids during COVID, and I wish I turned in some of those papers during my own failed degree. I never met the woman who ran the illicit ring, but I remember she signed all her emails with one initial: “C.” She definitely fetishized the gig. The first one I was hired to write was a third-year philosophy essay on ethics.
What three authors living or dead would you like to have a coffee with?
I was lucky enough to have coffee this morning with the artist Scott Treleaven, whose friendship I cherish. A morning coffee with Scott feels like an entire summer spent reading. I sit across from him, downloading big hunks of enlightenment whole. Scott is so wise and transfixing and generous. It doesn’t hurt that he literally sparkles, as if he’s made out of that otherworldly material celebrities are made of. Or angels. Scott is good friends with Dennis Cooper and Derek McCormack. I would give my first born to be invited to hang out with that posse.
What does your definition of personal literary success look like?
Being read by trans people of all stripes.
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