“In this poetry collection that fuses Jewish mysticism and halakha with Gothic tales and queer eroticism, Shawn C. Harris dares us to walk through that red door and lose ourselves on a journey of death, grief, rebellion, escapism, nihilism, passion. This journey—half nightmare, half revelry—ultimately leads to a re-appreciation of life and light. Each poem is a world to itself; grouped together, they become what might best be described as a (fictitious) memoir in lyrical form, a vision in a pomegranate orchard, an apparition in a cemetery. Harris’ work is unusual, highly original: densely structured, full of whispers and echoes, surprising, haunting.”
Due to popular demand, my debut poetry collection, The Red Door, is now available for pre-order at Ben Yehuda Press.
The Red Door has spent so much time in my head or on my hard drive that I assume that it’s merely a figment of my imagination, a strange dream I had that I was an author with a book coming out.
So, getting my advance review copy of The Red Door was kind of surreal. This thing that has lived in the ether for so long is now a tangible object that other people can see and smell and touch. It’s brand new, so it’s got that new book scent and texture. As much as I appreciate the convenience of PDFs and e-readers, something about the dead tree edition of The Red Door makes me go, “This actually happened? This actually happened!”
It’s mysterious and strange. This thing that once existed only in my imagination is now an object that occupies three-dimensional space. Of course, this involved years of working alone and months of collaboration with others. There was no abracadabra hocus pocus, but it feels as if a magic spell was cast, conjuring something from nothing.
It’s fitting, I suppose, since I’ve identified with witches, wizards, seers, enchanters, sorcerers, psychics, and magi for a long time. I can’t say if The Red Door is an act of real magic or not, yet the wonder, joy, and excitement I feel (combined with a tiny amount of apprehension) in response to its “birth” in the real world are absolutely real.
Bizarro Torah 