Staff Picks: Matthew Sciarappa’s Favorites

This very spare, very sensual, very gay collection of poems from Richie Hofmann compounds the profundities of desire, masochism, classicism, and corporeality into petite jabs to the heart. Drunk students at a bar, one of Mapplethorpe’s orchids, a whiff of cologne, or staying in bed past noon — with expert economy and a subtle ear, A Hundred Lovers conjures gentle, sometimes fleeting, distillations of life. Minimal, sweet, and just plain gorgeous all around.

Jamie Hood’s Trauma Plot is the real deal. It is one of the most gorgeously rendered examinations of trauma and memory I’ve read. A deeply moving life story with a critical, sociological bend that constantly retextures itself for truly optimal impact. From its metamorphosing of person and perspective to its candid brutality to its bleak humor to its cosmopolitan allusions to its willingness to revel in discourse and yet abandon discourse the minute a harmful reality overpowers the theoretical, this is top-tier nonfiction.