It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt. Buy It Now!

Four years ago, I got an email from an old college friend by the name of Maureen McDole. Maureen, her husband, and a couple other folks had started a new, small press in Florida called Summerfolk, and Maureen wanted to know if I would be interested in submitting a poetry manuscript for consideration for publication.

Does a carriage horse shit in the street?

oOf course, I said yes. It took me about a year to get my act together to get a manuscript to the editors, and in the meantime I met the man I would eventually be with for the next three years. On meeting David, and seeing his art work, I asked him if he would consider a collaboration with me on the book. Twenty poems matched with 20 of his lino cut prints from his Face A Day series. He said yes. The publishers said yes. And so, the concept that would become the book, It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt, was born.

The last three years have been a wild ride of love, war, growth, change, hurt, loss, pain, and healing. Gabriel Garling with Summerfolk Press designed a fantastic book, but, the economic reality of the times is that the press, a labor of love, has been put on hold due to the recession. Unfortunately that meant that the good people at Summerfolk couldn't print our book.

Enter Sven Davisson at Rebel Satori Press.

About a year ago, I realized that I was well on my way to writing my first novel. By August of last year, I had a good 100 or so pages written. My friends Emanuel Xavier and Charlie Vazquez were both being published by the Queer Mojo imprint of Rebel Satori Press. I asked them if they would put in a good word with their publisher for me. He asked to see a sample of the novel and a synposis. I obliged. He obliged me by giving my a contract for my first novel, Eden Lost, which will be out later this Fall (YES BETTY TISEL I AM WORKING ON THE DANG REVISIONS!). In May, Sven descended from his mighty mountain eyrie in Maine to attend the book release party for Emanuel Xavier's latest project, Me No Hablo con Acento, and I had a chance to meet and hang out with Sven. I mentioned, in passing, that I had this completed manuscript that I was considering self-publishing. Sven gave me complete side eye and said, "No, no. Send it to me. If I like it, I will publish it."

Sven liked it. Sven published it. You can order it right now. Help a broke writer be less broke and do yourself a favor...get an amazing book with poetry and art that is, in my humble opinion, amazing. But don't just take my word for it. Take their words too:

"Brandon Lacy Campos is an important poet that doesn't cut corners and doesn't compromise. His work is vivid, jagged, and it takes up space in the most beautiful way. To invest time in getting familiar with his poetry is to invest in vitality. I hope this is just the first shout to announce the arrival of his chorus." -Bao Phi, author of Song I Sing.

"Brandon Lacy Campos is a word thief of the best and brightest kind, pilfering from “a corrupt system that must fall/If we’re ever to have liberty and justice for all.” These scathing, impassioned poems kick up stars dragged along asphalt—with outlandish sass, old-time funk, and a hot, ever-shimmying soul that could teach the stiffest otherness in anyone more than a few things about its most generous self." Ed Bok Lee, best selling author of Real Karaoke People.

"Brandon Lacy Campos is part tomahawk thrower and part philosopher, a fresh voice of queer rebellion, an outsider talking of revolution, avenging exploitation. The stinging lashes on a slave’s back, the mystical incantations of native medicine men, the curiosities of an innocent white child and the cultural bisection of a bilingual Latino—these are the things he sees, as these are the things he is. These poems are monuments to the victims of abuse, to the splendor of visionary queer consciousness—to true America." Charlie Vázquez, fiction writer, blogger and host of the queer East Village reading series, PANIC!, author of Contraband and co-editor of From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (get this book too! It includes an excerpt from Eden Lost).


You can buy your copy of It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt, today!

More Advanced Praise for "It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt"

Bao Phi is one of the fiercest and best known spoken word artists practicing the art in the United States. He is the curator of the Equilibrium Spoken Word series at the Loft Literary Center (www.loft.org), which is the largest literary center in the United States. Bao has won numerous awards and has been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam. He has toured these United States and brought his love and truth to thousands of people in hundreds of audiences.

He is also a friend. Bao's poetry can be heard from HBO to light rail stops in Minneapolis (no lie, next time you are in Minneapolis at one of the stops, press or crank one of the levers that says push here, and you will hear Bao's poetry). Here is a Wikipedia entry for my main Vietnamese man.

And to check out Bao's poetry, click here to listen to "You Bring Out the Vietnamese In Me," one of my favorite Bao Phi specials.

Thank you, Bao, for taking the time to read my manuscript and for loving up on Juliana Pegues, another one of my favorite people and poets. Your love and support over the last almost decade has been much appreciated.

Here is Bao Phi's advanced review of my book, It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt, due out from Summerfolk Press in Spring 2010.

"Brandon Lacy Campos is an important poet that doesn't cut corners and doesn't compromise. His work is vivid, jagged, and it takes up space in the most beautiful way. To invest time in getting familiar with his poetry is to invest in vitality. I hope this is just the first shout to announce the arrival of his chorus." -Bao Phi.

Thanks Bao. Your support helped bring out the poet in me.

Book Review: Emanuel Xavier's Christ Like

In early fall 2007, I received a phone call from legendary poet, and my friend, Bao Phi asking me if I would be interested in performing at the October Equilibrium show. I would be opening for a dynamic queer spoken word artist from New York by the name of Emanuel Xavier. Now, if Bao Phi asked me to walk on water for him while carrying a vat of bubbling acid, I would try my best to do it. He has been an immense supporter of my poetry. Also, the Equilibrium series at the Loft Literary Center is the “it” place for spoken word artists in the Twin Cities. The series celebrates the best of the best of local and national spoken word artists of color, the crowd is always live, and it is my poetic home.

I, of course, said yes to Bao’s request. Though I had not met Emanuel Xavier, I knew who he was. I knew him from his poetry, and we both had selections in the anthology Queer Codex: Chile Love. We have an ex-boyfriend in common (shout out to Joe Jimenez of Corpus Christi). I also knew him from the movie “Ski Trip,” where he played a water-downed version of the character Mikey X in his novel, reviewed here, Christ Like. I also knew him from the brutal gay bashing he survived, and I, like many of my community, were pissed off and saddened by the attack.

Emanuel came to town with his best friend and manager, Leo Toro, and we quickly became friends. We went out that night, toured the underbelly of the Minneapolis club scene, and got a little wasted. Since that time, I have been honored to perform with Emanuel, to have been featured in his anthology Mariposas, and to call him a friend y comadre.

Last weekend, I saw Emanuel and Leo for the first time in about a year. They came through my birthday party, and Emanuel gave me, as a gift, a copy of his newly re-released novel: Christ Like.

I finished the book about ten minutes ago, and I decided to review it for you, my readers, here at My Feet Only Walk Forward.

A Review of Emanuel Xavier's Christ Like


As a club kid wannabe that remembers the flash bulb end of Limelight, aka The Sanctuary in Emanuel Xavier’s novel, the opening salvo of Christ Like grabbed me by the throat and dragged me into a ride into the Hell mouth of my own twisted personal history.

From the gate, the sex, drugs, rape, brutality, and vibrancy of this novel lets the reader know that the writer isn’t taking any prisoners. The semi-autobiographical nature of the story adds an extra punch to the groin and leaves you feeling ripped open and exposed to the early morning Sunday sunlight after a night of drugged out partying. Been there, done that, relived it all with this novel.

There are times when the novel comes up for air and the writing becomes rapid fire and surface level. It is clear that the story could use the help of an editor with a keen eye that would give the author a chance to dig deeper in some places, leave some places on the cutting room floor, and give the novel more space to breath and the story to develop.

But the truth is that I finished this book in record time, consumed it in large mouthfuls, and sometimes forgot to swallow before shoving the next bit in. The hard core reality presented and the conscious honoring of the sweet and ugly truth of being queer, homeless, fierce, powerful, terrified, abused, alone, loved, ashamed, and celebrated all at the same time, communicated a stark and beautiful reality. The realness and beauty of it excused the sometimes poor editing and skin-deep storytelling, and left this reader wanting to know what happens next to Mikey X.