The Halo is a finalist for Lambda Literary’s 29th Annual Award in Gay Poetry and on the longlist as a finalist for the 2016 Julie Suk Prize.
The Halo
C. Dale Young
The Halo is a quasi-autobiography about a man who has wings and desperately wants to be simply human. Tracking from adolescence through adulthood, it explores an accident that temporarily paralyzes him and exposes him to human weakness all the way to his transformation into something more powerful than even he realizes. It explores a personal evolution from being prey to becoming the hunter.
from “The Vista,” from The Halo:
Not tenderness in the eye but a brute need
to see accurately: over the ridge on a trail
deep in Tennessee, the great poet looked out
and examined the vista that confederate soldiers saw
as they rode over its edge rather than surrender.
I saw only the cliff’s edge and then
estimated the distance down to the bottom
of that dirty ravine. This is what someone with wings
does when he knows he cannot fly: he measures
distance….