David J. S. Pickering
Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland
Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland explores themes of sexual orientation, spirituality, family, and aging, often using smart humor and sharp observation. These poems are much like the old Cadillacs that Pickering clearly loves, big and powerful and roomy, and they are full of interesting companions kibitzing in the back seat—Bette Davis, Bob Ross, Judy Garland, Lucille Clifton, Marlene Dietrich, Vincent Van Gogh, and yes, Jesus.
This collection is an affirmation of spirit and the variety of ways it manifests in the contemporary world. While these poems sometimes navigate dark and complex territories, Pickering is a confident driver, and the reader always feels safe riding shotgun in the front seat. So, settle into the leather-trimmed aqua brocade… and step on it. You’re going for a ride.
Cover design: Nathan Putens
ISBN: 978-1-950404-07-0
Paperback: $18
Publication date: September 1, 2021
Photo by Dean Davis
David J.S. Pickering is a native Oregonian, having grown up and lived much of his life in the working-class culture of the North Oregon Coast. His poetry has been published in a variety of journals, including Gold Man Review, Portland Review, Gertrude Journal, Raw Art Review, and Haunted Waters Press. David recently retired from a 30-year career in human resources management. He and his husband, Stephen, live in Oregon.
Praise for Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland
I’m moonstruck—or should I say starstruck, like the devotee of a golden-age Hollywood star—by the bright and shining poetry brilliance that dazzles every page in David Pickering’s debut collection, Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland. David is a native Oregonian whose honest aesthetic sings with the authenticity of self-acceptance while also wrestling with secrets and the dark. These poems are viscerally rooted in the landscape of the northern Oregon coast and chronicle a lineage of people who spring from its meandering rivers and wet highways along the Pacific. There are hot cars, cold drinks, and sexy lipstick shades. There are missed opportunities and close encounters, drunken nights at the bar, heartfelt prayers on the beach. There is cruelty, questioning, and loss. Benevolence and faith. Still, for all their seriousness, the poems pulse with rapture, hilarity, and verve. They believe in fresh starts and forgiveness; they invite and honor and so unabashedly love. Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland is a brave exploration and celebration of a gifted poet’s most original voice, one that is urging us in poem after poem to “Just live your life. Just live.”
—Nancy Flynn, author of Every Door Recklessly Ajar
David Pickering chronicles the clutter and clarity of American life in these smart and sensitive poems. There’s a focused gravity to this work, and yet the author’s rhythmic voice makes reading each line a dance-like pleasure. From the irreverent and insightful “Jesus Comes” visitations, to the wryly nostalgic memories of beachcombing and uncensored family portraits (you’ll love Mom in that Cadillac), this book is a carnival delight. Driven by intelligence, humor, film, music, fresh air, cookies, cigarettes, salmon, trees and martinis, with burning hope and some scalding criticism, Pickering’s love for language and truth energizes every stanza. This is a great collection.
—Henry Hughes, Oregon Book Award-winner poet and author of Back Seat with Fish
These poems of personal history and a deep sense of place bring to mind Leonard Cohen’s words, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” David Pickering pulls us through the crack. This pull can be disconcerting but the light is welcoming and unusually clear. Growing up gay in a straight culture is a major theme as is sexuality in general, its restlessness and power. What pain appears in this collection is made bearable by delightfully intelligent humor, confident craftsmanship, and a wild, generous take on Jesus. Pickering will lure you past the point of no return and leave you there, thankful.
—Marjorie Power, author of Sufficient Emptiness
Excerpts from Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland
Lipstick
Mom wore lipstick like religion,
a prayer of smooth red applied
each hour in a practiced discipline
of three distinct movements.
Tangee Red in the ’50s,
Coral Tangerine in ’63,
and frosted pinks five years later.
Her Avon lady left lots of samples,
tiny white tubes like popcorn
all over the house, easy to pilfer
and stash in my room, easy to explain—
I don’t know, they’re everywhere.
At night by flashlight I rehearsed
my own sensual ritual of color, craved
the taste of scarlet, the edgy unease
of crossing that forbidden line.
Jesus Comes to Me as Judy Garland
Heavy-lidded Miltown eyes full of knowing
how it is, he wears the little black dress
she wore on Jack Parr in ’62
her last good years before the voice went
and she got so weird and died in London
seated on the loo. He has a pink follow spot,
says he loves what it does for his complexion
when he belts ’em out at Carnegie Hall,
gets the people on their feet, clapping,
standing on the seats, shimmying
in the aisles, says everyone wants a piece
of rapture to tuck and savor later, to help them
through the days of shrink-wrapped Tweets
and Pandora playlists. Jesus says he knew
he had to intervene when he heard me
in the seventh-grade hallway singing
“Don’t Rain on My Parade,” knew I was more
of a Judy than a Barbra, and gave me “A Star
Is Born” to replace my “Funny Girl” infatuation.
He says Judy knew better how to project
the note, send it through whirring atoms of air,
through sinew and bone to stroke the heart
and move into space where it begat glowing
galaxies, gaseous clouds of color spinning
red to blue to gold like the light on Grammie’s
silver Christmas tree glinting in her living room
as The Judy Garland Show boomed on the TV.
Just listen to her, says Jesus, I knew you’d love
Judy, that she’d be your truth and your way. I heard it
when you were born. Your first cry—that note went
spinning, created a world light years away. He points
to a star, then another and another. Look! See
what you can do? You help create the heavens!
He takes my hand, and I can see the pulsar
I made singing “The Man that Got Away”
in the basement, age fifteen, fat and queeny
and flawless. The quasar made to “Get Happy,”
singing in Grandpa’s old fedora, We’re goin’
to the promised land, notes flung like solar winds,
a celestial borealis flaring on my shoulders,
a feather boa of serpentine light, my fingers
snapping planets and shooting bright fire.