The Silence of Men

ForeWord Book of the Year Honorable Mention 2006

The Silence of Men confronts and breaks the silence in men’s lives surrounding sex, family, power and violence; graphic and intimate, celebratory and heartbreakingly painful, these are the poems of a survivor for whom writing, because it breaks that silence, has been a primary means of survival.

Richard Jeffrey Newman, an associate professor at Nassau Community College, New York, is an essayist, poet and translator who has been publishing his work since 1988, when the essay “His Sexuality; Her Reproductive Rights” appeared in Changing Men magazine. Since then, his essays, poems, and translations have appeared in a wide range of journals, among them Prairie Schooner and Birmingham Poetry Review. He has given talks and led workshops on writing autobiographically about gender, sex, and sexuality. The Silence of Men was released by CavanKerry Press in 2006.

From “Like Wet Clay On A Wheel”

She leaned into his hands and he took her,
kneading her back on the bench next to mine
in the weekend chaos of Washington
Square Park, where I sat trying to let go
of what I couldn’t help but hold; and when
his touch pulled her gaze up out of herself
and chance turned it towards mine, I saw
in her eyes how much I wanted to be
beneath hands like his, that knew which muscle
held my tears, and how much pressure would be
permission to let them go. Today, I woke
for the first time since we buried him
wanting my brother alive: someone to tell
I’ve made it this far, who won’t ask From where?

“From Korea to Manhattan, and from the haunted voices still rising from the concentration camps, Richard Jeffrey Newman’s The Silence of Men exposes the violence of men toward men, and men toward women, and the tenderness also, the resounding tenderness. His is an unremitting empathy, as uncommon as it is necessary. Such a brave debut.”
— Robin Behn

May 2006
124 pp
Trade paper – 6 X 9.25
$16
978-0-9723045-8-0