Procured this, my latest slender tome of poems, at Elliott Bay Book Company on our 10th-anniversary trip to Seattle. From that pickup in the American Northwest to returning to my own Middle West environs and reading of a passionate gay teacher's experience due south in Kentucky, that was a multi-stop journey – physically and emotionally – unto itself.

Some of Carver's childhood experiences echo my own so uncannily mirror (or at least run concurrent to) my own that it was startling. See: "Under the Pews," "Trombone," "First Crush," "Self-Hating Preacher," and "Food Stamp Holiday Song."

In "The Truth Will Stand When the World's on Fire" (named for an Appalachian proverb), it's heartbreaking to read his extended thoughts-as-verses about the first suicide note he received from a student –
"She was a bright, queer, rainbow-edged life squashed into two dimensions
in black-and-white worksheet photocopies
for seventeen years;
we saved her life,
but her paper goodbye remained on my desk [...]"

Overall, a lovely and thought-provoking set of autobiographical verses, heavy on his story and often light on rhyme. Sometimes I wished for an extra gut-punch to come from a particular stanza or phrasing. Methinks Carver seeks to present ideas and identities for what they are and let the reader be inspired and/or challenged, and make determinations for themself. He does not force one's reaction to the indignities that he at one time and Kentucky kids all the time still suffer from others' range of ignorances.

There's a lot of detailed, visceral narrative here, and for good reason: Carver won Kentucky's teacher of the year recognition in 2021, and in 2022, he left his post as an educator in the grade-school system where he worked, in part due to ongoing homophobia. He went on to testify before a U.S. House subcommittee about the need for a range of diverse texts to be available to impressionable students that reflect their own experiences. Truly, how long must we sing this song?