Ryan Tracy's Tender Bottoms is whimsical, powerful, sexy, mundane, and profound. When I finished reading it I had very deep feelings and both of the titular words applied; together, apart, singularly, and plurally. Here's a top drawer collection of poems for all the precious and tender bottoms. -Justin Vivian Bond
Ryan Tracy's Tender Bottoms contributes a path for the avant-garde buttressed by the bodily and the everyday. This is a "collection" in every sense of the word: promiscuous, conversational, curious, assertive, parenthetical, subversive, tender (naturally), repetitive, haphazard, meticulous, matter of fact and arcane-all of the above-and above all: playful. Tracy never forgets Tender Buttons' motto (one of many): "What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it." Tracy responds to Stein with unabashed enthusiasm, nonspecific attention to the productive glaze of boredom, distraction, and the electric movements of a consciousness coming to a boil, as if, as he writes, "through a cloud of vapor." -Chris Campanioni
A testament to the love of objects, Tender Bottoms is an ode to queer domesticity, exalting all things Gertrude Stein loved, and would have most likely loved: pet names, dishwashers and PrEP, little dogs, barebacking and teabags, red rubber boots. Campy yet earnest, Tracy's voice is clear and resolved, clever and accessible; and in the boudoir of the mind (heart?), where the poet calls for Gloria and grace, it is at its most tender. -Angelo Nikolopoulos
