Poetry and Art byTrev Handsome

Casual nudity makes me feel like I am living in some other world, filled with nymphs, fauns, and a smattering of mythical beings. I enjoy casual nudity because I think it reminds me how similar all bodies are and that there isn’t as much that separates us as gender and societal expectations would have us believe.

I find being nude with friends to be a sacred beautiful thing because it really creates an environment of non-judgment and celebration. I think I am happiest when I am naked especially outside.

I think in my work I am constantly working through my own understanding and relationship to the world, so often I am the subject. And I happen to be a male creature and I happen to love being naked. I think I am also a very horny person though I love to create things that are tender and play with expectations of nudity, sensuality, and the comedy of being in a human body.

Most of the time my work comes from me trying to figure things out. If I am in a situation that I am having a hard time understanding or making sense of, I will go to any of these mediums to help me make sense of what I am going through. Or, at least make something out of my constant confusion.

Currently I feel my artistic vision is exploring boundaries and the relationship between the external and internal. The investigation of realizing that everything is connected and not actually separate, though it may feel or seem that way at first glance. My work always comes from a feeling, one that beats so loud in my body that I have no choice but to birth them.

Great question! In regard to my artistic process, I started writing poetry years before I really dove into collage work. I was writing poems to help me deal with heartache and depression, and to try and express something beautiful — gain a better perspective. I started collages during lockdown last year.

I was living in a closet in Park Slope completely cut off from friends and family, and I decided to teach myself Photoshop and explore different mediums. In the end I had no intention of mixing collage and poetry until my extremely talented poet friend Becca suggested I combine them.

I don’t really think when I’m making collages to be honest. I am constantly taking pictures wherever I go and documenting little magics I find around my life. Then I will be, like, I’m bored; I should make something. I usually take some sort of selfie or photo of myself that I like and then start mixing and seeing what world can be created. I think it’s best to not think and just go with it. This feels like a way of loving myself better.

This is funny. I am maybe connected to the radical faeries (?). During lockdown I (like many others) started doing OnlyFans, Twitter, light sex work. I was hanging out with a boy I was dating at the time and he was like, your twitter handle should be nyc fairy cuz you are a fairy and very magical.

I do know some faeries, however I do not consider myself a part of that community.

This reminded me of a show on Netflix called “The Midnight Gospel” — an animated series of podcast-like interviews turned into a cartoon. I was thinking about the episode when the protagonist is going through life cycles with his mother and how they at one point became planets that started to fall apart.

This made me cry and I thought it was tragic and honest and beautiful. I was thinking about how we (human things) are all kind of like planets, stars, cosmic things — we bump into each other and sometimes combine to make new things, and sometimes fall apart. My hope of course is to create an everlasting connection or space in my body memory with people.

And yet, I know this isn’t true. As much as I want to over-romanticize casual sex and this world, sometimes we are only passing through people. Not to discredit or marginalize the experience, but to realize and maybe see the beauty and sadness in our passing through each other.