The poetry collection, Fellow Odd Fellow, by author Steve Riel, is a deeply compassionate look at identity from childhood to present through the lens of gay culture and experience. Careful attention to language and sound makes Riel's unwavering descriptions melodic and lilting. Riel's gift is to "unpack, unfold, smooth out one by one," with his provocative verse, boyhood, guilt, fragility, dementia, and AIDS. His poems process longing kept "behind the fake door, then stumble through the tunnel out of this galactic silence." From "the dim closet of confession," a poignant and touching honesty, humor, and imagination illuminate the beauty of embracing self.