1528: Isobutyl Nitrite by Kieron Walquist

Summary

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1528: "Isobutyl Nitrite" by Kieron Walquist
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: June 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Slowdown, hosted by poet Maggie Smith, explores the intense, confusing, and often illogical emotions of a first crush through the lens of Kieron Walquist’s poem “Isobutyl Nitrite.” Smith sets the stage with a reflective introduction about her own early celebrity crushes, before presenting and contemplating Walquist’s vivid poem, which intertwines themes of desire, memory, coming-of-age, and identity. The episode offers listeners a raw meditation on the potent mixture of shame, euphoria, and discovery that so often marks adolescent longing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Reflecting on First Crushes

• Crushes Are Illogical: Maggie Smith opens the episode by inviting listeners to remember their first crush—not necessarily a romantic partner or classmate, but an unattainable figure, often a celebrity. She situates her own experience in the pop culture of the 1980s.
  • Quote: “Crushes, after all, aren't logical.” (01:34)
• Power of Adolescence: Smith reminisces about bedroom posters and iconic teen heartthrobs, like Kirk Cameron and John Lennon, emphasizing that the nature of desire at that age is both irrational and deeply formative.

Introduction to the Poem

• The Knot of Teenage Desire: Smith explains that today’s poem dives into the chaotic, intertwined pain and beauty of queer adolescent desire, specifically centering around a cinematic figure and a remembered party.
  • Quote: “The poem weaves together the pain and the beauty of desire, which can become so knotted in our teen years. It leaves the reader a little breathless, like only a crush can.” (02:16)

Reading of "Isobutyl Nitrite" by Kieron Walquist

• Sensory, Fragmented Moments: The poem conveys a party scene, the experimentation with intoxicants, and charged nostalgia for formative moments of attraction and confusion.
• Drowning and Rescue: There’s a parallel between a memory of nearly drowning at a YMCA pool and being “pulled out of the water” by an older boy, who becomes an emotional archetype.
  • Visuals and Language: “I was pulled out of the water like a sunken bicycle by an older boy who looked like Sunshine from Remember the Titans.” (03:44)
• Desire and Imitation: The act of kissing during a party is a means of mutual rescue:
  • Quote: “We are two boys, mouth to mouth, trying to rescue each other.” (04:25)
• Pop Culture Reflection: The speaker vividly recalls a specific homoerotic moment from "Remember the Titans," examining its ambiguous, teasing nature and the confusion it caused.
  • Quote: “When Sunshine, the new kid, comes to football practice with long blond hair, when Bertier says, hey fellas, look at that fruitcake. When in a locker room, Sunshine tells Bertiere, you know what I want and lunges to kiss him… For a month, I'd lie in bed and face the cool wall, repeat to myself, you know what I want, you know?” (05:05–05:52)

Insights & Reflections

• Longing for Meaning: The poem’s central memory centers not just on the event, but on the yearning to find meaning and connection in these early experiences of queerness, desire, and popular culture.
• Retrospective Understanding: With time, the speaker recognizes the original film moment as a “joke,” but its emotional impact reverberates long after, highlighting how deeply such moments etch themselves into young minds.
  • Quote: “Only later did I realize the kiss, the fight, the smile on Sunshine's face as a tease, the joke it was meant to be.” (05:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Maggie Smith (on teenage logic):
  • “Crushes, after all, aren't logical.” (01:34)
• Kieron Walquist (through the poem):
  • “We are two boys, mouth to mouth, trying to rescue each other.” (04:25)
  • “For a month, I'd lie in bed and face the cool wall, repeat to myself, you know what I want, you know?” (05:45)
  • “Only later did I realize the kiss, the fight, the smile on Sunshine's face as a tease, the joke it was meant to be.” (05:55)
• Smith on the poem’s impact:
  • “It leaves the reader a little breathless, like only a crush can.” (02:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:59: Maggie Smith’s invitation to recall first crushes and her personal anecdote
• 02:16: Introduction to the episode's poem and its themes
• 03:20–06:42: Reading of “Isobutyl Nitrite” by Kieron Walquist
• 05:05–05:52: Reflection on the "Remember the Titans" locker room scene and its emotional aftermath
• 05:55–06:15: Recognition of the scene’s intended humor and the lasting confusion
• 06:42: End of poem and reflections; transition to show credits

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Closing Thoughts

This episode of The Slowdown offers a poignant meditation on queer adolescence and the mysterious, formative power of desire. Through Smith’s personal reflections and Walquist’s evocative poem, listeners are invited to confront their own memories of longing and the ways pop culture can both clarify and complicate our earliest understandings of self and other. The language is intimate, funny, and vulnerable—creating a sense of shared experience for anyone who has ever felt out of place or moved by a fleeting, formative crush.

Transcript

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[C]

Foreign. I'm Maggie Smith and this is the Slowdown. Think back to your first crush. Not your first girlfriend or boyfriend or the first classmate you asked to a dance or to the movies, but the first person you ever felt that way about. Chances are it might not have been a classmate or a neighbor, but an actor or a musician. A celebrity. I've had so many conversations with friends about the posters in our bedrooms and in our lockers when we were young. I'll be dating myself by saying this, but I had a subscription to Teen Beat magazine in the 80s. I definitely had posters of Kirk Cameron on my bedroom walls, along with a lot of Beatles posters. John Lennon was my favorite back then. John was way too old for me, and Kirk and I are completely incompatible ideologically. I know this now, but all of that was irrelevant when I was 12. Crushes, after all, aren't logical. In today's poem, the speaker feels something awaken in him while watching the film Remember the Titans. The poem weaves together the pain and the beauty of desire, which can become so knotted in our teen years. It leaves the reader a little breathless, like only a crush can. This is a poem by Kieran Walquist. Isobutyl nitrite but the house party's thunderous. An indoor pool, so I hear. I used to be all right, right? His lips to my ear, yellow bottle and red bolt held out like like a wildflower. I sniff a little, like nail polish, a little like chlorine. It scratches back. It's my first time. My first time at the YMCA pool. I almost drowned. Ladies rested back on towels, dried turquoise toes. I was pulled out of the water like a sunken bicycle by an older boy who looked like sunshine from Remember the Titans. After I cried alone in the locker room at the party, we huff and become light headed, cleaned by VCR cleaner. I kiss him, then kiss him harder. He grabs my blond hair. We are two boys, mouth to mouth, trying to rescue each other. I couldn't rescue Remember the Titans from our VCR becoming Cannibal, the VHS eaten alive and the real all that black ribbon gutted out. What was left glittered like party streamers. It rippled like light upon a pool. I saw everything, though Sunshine and Birdier. When Sunshine, the new kid, comes to football practice with long blond hair, when Bertier says, hey fellas, look at that fruitcake. When in a locker room, Sunshine tells Bertiere, you know what I want and lunges to kiss him. The fight between them. For a month I'd lie in bed and face the cool wall, repeat to myself, you know what I want, you know? Only later did I realize the kiss, the fight, the smile on Sunshine's face as a tease, the joke it was meant to be. When I was pulled out of the water, I heard another how do you drown a blonde? You put a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of a pool. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter. Find us on instagram slowdownshow and blueskylowdownshow.org.

[D]

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