Why do the events of our childhoods—a relatively small sliver of most of our lives—hold such sway over the rest of our existence? And what explains the inexorable hold of family—the fact that no matter how poorly we’re treated by a family member, our tie to that person remains?
Steven Concert faces these issues in his recent book, Steer into the Skid.
Themes of early-life experience and family dysfunction are prominent throughout Concert’s passionately personal collection, in which he struggles to come to terms with the effects of an abusive and traumatic childhood.
The narrator’s father emerges as both angry and emotionally absent. The image of his swinging black leather belt surfaces and resurfaces. The mother—a far warmer figure—is physically absent from the time the narrator is 10, having died young.
The poet describes, early on, childhood sexual abuse at the hands of an older youth—"a teen-aged boy put his hard prick/into my seven year old mouth,” he writes in “The First Time.” This theme re-emerges in multiple poems. He alludes to sexual abuse again in “Greek Tragedy,” in which the narrator attends a viewing or funeral:
posed in an open metal casket,
lips stitched shut so you would not leave
your secret behind,
Later in the poem, he continues:
my upended world never right.
I should not speak ill of the dead.
And uncles should not molest nephews,
but they do.
Concert writes eloquently of the fear and trauma that accompany child sexual abuse in “The First Time Revisited,” in which he describes going on a camping trip with a church youth group. He wakes during the night to find an adult man touching his genitals. Concert writes,
I rolled away
and onto my stomach,
and slept that way for more than ten years.
One gets the sense of the narrator as a child abandoned in a world of people he cannot trust. He is left trying to protect himself even from his family, even from his siblings. “Cooking in an Italian Kitchen” 10 depicts a family dynamic riddled with conflict.
Rivalry of three sisters simmers
unattended on a back burner.
Over the objections of an estranged brother…
Heartbreak boils in our red sauce.
In “Arachnophobia,” the poet refers to “my discovery that people we know/can hurt us—” and the debilitating effect of that hurt:
As he pulls up his pants,
he steals my voice, tucks it away
in a back pocket, keeps it for decades
But Concert’s narrator eventually finds a way to fight back—through writing.
each consonant and vowel takes back
the secret one letter at a time—
beneath my feet,
I stomp him into the ground.
This book thus appears to embody an act of rebellion, of self-reclamation.
As a child, lost, Concert’s narrator cowers under the power of those around him. He details his struggle to emerge from that state, to find and establish an identity for himself.
In “Coming At It Sideways,” he describes how even his family’s identity was muddled.
My recorded lineage filled with descendants
of Poland, Wales and Germany,
and a great-grandfather who crossed the Atlantic
at the turn of the century—
our family name changed at Ellis Island
because his Italian
was too difficult to understand.
“I reside in the clash of Catholicism meets Methodist,” he says—an intersection that may show up in the Biblical references peppered throughout the collection.
Concert reflects on the lasting effects of his childhood experiences.
Man of few words spoke with his fist
when we stepped out of line—
his only embrace tinged with anger.
Dead nearly a decade, he grips me still.
In “Mechanical Breath,” he says, “I still submit to the safety of silence/which makes adult relationships difficult.”
The narrator appears to long for what he never had: a tight-knit, loving family. In “Empty,” he effectively describes one indicator of his family’s fractured nature—and its lingering effect:
not a single photograph exists
with all eleven of us together,
no physical proof we were ever
collectively a family—
we are invisible,
I am invisible.
In “Speaking in Tongues,” Concert also shares how the fear and distance in his relationship with his father stop him from sharing important information about himself.
I never told you I am gay…
feared you might beat
the faggot out of me.
Concert evinces a certain wistful sadness when he writes of the difficulty of connecting with his father, even into adulthood:
As adults, we hardly talked,
when we tried it emerged as though
we were speaking in different dialects,
which left me to wonder:
did we share the same language.
Concert has written with courage about difficult issues that I suspect—unfortunately—will resonate with many. His book is at once a lament, an exploration, and an act of self-realization.
Abbey J. Porter writes poetry and memoir about people, relationships, and life struggles. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, an MA in liberal studies from Villanova University, and a BA in English from Gettysburg College. Abbey works in communications and lives in Cheltenham, Pa., with her two dogs.