Miss Price & Me: A Verse Memoir

Davidson Garrett's Miss Price & Me doesn't fool around, and it isn't shy about telling a robust, exuberant story in verse about a young man's religious love of opera and religious fear of his homosexuality, and how they propelled him from a strait-laced upbringing in Shreveport, Louisiana to New York City in the early 1970s. Here is Mr. Garrett at the other end of a life in the theater, looking back with undiminished enthusiasm and pitch perfect memory for early encounters with opera and Leontyne Price, where the twin strands of his story wind around each like snakes in the caduceus around the staff of his identity. Bravo, Sir! -Arthur Russell, author, At the Car Wash - 2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize In this charming, coming-of-age verse memoir, Davidson Garrett guides us through his sexual awakening on the wings of Leontyne Price's "lustrous voice." Born in Evangelical Louisiana, bullied for his stocky body, bedeviled by his attraction to men, he finds his refuge and his rapture, listening to his Diva, eyes closed, "as if in prayer." Brave pilgrimages to hear her, who is for him "the Voice of God" - New Orleans, Bloomington, Atlanta, San Francisco - lead to a "lightning-bolt epiphany" at the Mystic Bistro, where openly gay men welcome him. We leave him in New York at the start of his acting career, fully embracing his deepest desires. -Susanna Rich, author, SHOUT!: Poetry for Suffrage and Beware the HouseIn Miss Price & Me, Davidson Garrett gently holds our hand and walks us through the amazing story of his life via a marvelous series of trenchant poems. He starts out with his birth, the perfect place to begin, and then soon comes to love poetry, via his mother, and classical music, via Leontyne Price, his "Voice of God." Davidson's journey is impossible to put down, so pick up a copy and enjoy it too. -Ron Kolm, author, The Bookstore Book: A Memoir and The Verities of Love