The Poem Formerly Known as the Poem Formerly Known as Stupid
“The Poem Formerly Known as the Poem Formerly Known as Stupid” by Gordon Taylor is the winner of the 2025 Queer Poetry Prize, selected by CAConrad. We’re honored to share this exuberant poem with you.
“My favorite poems reveal the world as unfixed. This poem has all the best angles of mystery and magic, stripped of unnecessary words: a poem where the poet trusts the reader not to overwrite with markers of explanation, in other words, a place made for us that is open, with plenty of space to cocreate in each line. There is always just enough for us to turn those chairs into cellos, just enough, even though it ends with the line, ‘there is so much to say.’ But that’s the best part: knowing there is so much more while this poem gives us the gift of expanding and bending our imaginations with just the right amount of words. I hope to read an entire book by this poet one day.” —CAConrad, Guest Judge
If I could begin again, I’d be wise.
I mean, I’d be a drummer,
not a poet. I’d be an ancient moose
in Algonquin Park happening upon two
hikers in a declining empire of red
leaves. I’d walk
toward the couple to startle them
because I’m MASSIVE & since a poem
is a passing glance & my antlers
are an autumn elegy, they’ll soon fall
into snow & I’ll be bald.
If I could begin again, I’d argue.
I’d resist. What is life without people
to disagree with?
Did I mention drumming? A poem
is percussion & the sound of my husband,
a declining empire of one
insisting that poetry is a lost
language. I wrote a stanza
to disagree with him & one to the stupid
doctor who said I engage too much
in anal sex, inviting disease.
&/or I’d be a triolet that masquerades
as a Rengay at night, dancing
shirtless at the club & in the morning,
a sonnet with four turns. I’d name myself
Turnette, in my silk dressing gown.
I’d start a trend. I hate trends though,
the long, clever poem title for example
& the trend of people erasing each other.
But I adore the ampersand, symbol
of metaphor & balance. Both
&. I’ll alternate my sandstone lines
with a meandering saltwater moat,
filled with friendly hammerheads. Sharks
survived two millennia, through the ice
age, toxic masculinity & Jaws.
Great whites are making a comeback
after endangerment. Who
else? If I could begin
again, I’d resurrect our calm, care
about trees.
There’s no algorithm
for stupid, RuPaul says. But she means a kind
of stupid that is silly, lovely wise.
If I could, I’d be as tender with words
as with husbands & I’d hammer
out pine dining chairs into cellos
in this declining empire of misreading,
of dissing, of missing happy
endings. I’ll write
about drag story-time
helping us find the artists we are.
To begin, I’ll dress
in my favorite drag, a stupid poem
containing my whole vocabulary
written on a papyrus scroll & I’ll sashay
over a drawbridge as trumpets bleat
my arrival. I’ll pet the sharks
on their snouts & visit the queen
of all queens at her gold & sapphire
throne. I’ll kneel before her
& read my poem aloud until I learn
something. I’ll stay for days.
there is so much to say.