Taboo

In this first volume of Living Out, a new series of gay and lesbian autobiographies, poet Rickel (arreboles) offers 16 impressionistic, often sexually explicit essays that follow no particular chronological order. The hallmark of his style is his adaptation of poetic techniques and structures to the narrative memoir. In ""Ground,"" for instance, a brief essay on the role of habit and repetition in grounding one's sense of selfhood, Rickel makes his point effectively by invoking seemingly disparate anecdotes about a bird's nest, a mirror, the momentary loss of a bike, his father's extreme discomfort with unknown sounds and a friend's calling attention to his habitually furrowed brow. While this fragmentation subverts the traditional autobiography, it can also nudge the reader toward greater insight and emotional response, though Rickel occasionally stops short of a deeper, more rewarding examination of some of the issues he raises. In other essays, Rickel recalls growing up in Arizona in the 1950s as the child of classical musicians; caring for his aging father; his childhood sexual experiences with other boys, which were divorced from any notions of homosexuality; his sexual preference in youth for Hispanic boys; and the passionate sense of meaning and identity he found on discovering literature. Rickel's smooth, accessible writing and his candor about such personal failings as racism and, in one episode, latent pedophilia often elevate this account of an otherwise conventional gay life. (Apr.)