Playing Coy: The Disclosures of a Closeted Man
Robert William Penn
language
(, Sept. 17, 2015)
Playing Coy is a compendium of poems that I wrote in Summer 2015 about the four romantic objects of my affection throughout my college career. I grew up conservative and Christian, so when I had my first crush on a handsome gym goer, I was started on the biggest discovery of my life; my sexuality. I found that themes of art-visual and performance based, literature, femininity, cities, and social media played a big role not only in my writings but also in my life. All of those things mean something special to me, thus, it was natural, I suppose, that they wriggled their way into my writing. Before coming up with an order of works for Playing Coy, however, I sat down and looked at all of them and tried to figure out the most logical way to fit them together. I asked myself, what is the bird eye view of The Disclosures of a Closeted Man? Then it hit me. Acceptance, not from the men, but the acceptance of me for myself. And so I modeled the poems by mood, to allude to the stages of grief; the grief I found myself in after realizing that me, good ol’ Christian Bobby, was gay. I saw it fitting to open with shock and move forward into pain, anger, and depression before the upward turn, reconstruction and then acceptance of myself. So, contrary to the book’s title, I am not a closeted man. I am openly homoromantic and I am comfortable saying so.