Belated Justice for Bayard Rustin?

In January 1953, a decade before civil rights activist Bayard Rustin became a chief organizer of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, Los Angeles police booked Rustin on suspicion of "lewd vagrancy." As John D'Emilio recounts in Chapter 9 ("Bayard's Trouble") of Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, which we discussed back in July 2006, hours after Rustin had given a speech in Pasadena, police officers spotted him in a parked car, having sex with one of the other two men in the car. Rustin was sentenced to 60 days in jail and forced to register as a sex offender.

That, of course, made him practically unemployable for years. In a March 1953 letter, Rustin wrote: "I know now that for me sex must be sublimated if I am to live with myself and in this world longer."

An article in today's Washington Post reports that California legislators are urging Governor Gavin Newsom  to "right this wrong" by issuing a posthumous pardon to Rustin. Doing so could help clear the way for the issuance of a postage stamp dedicated to him, a project that has been in the works for years.

Swerving — "His Dark Droll Humor Remains"

I used to apologize (semi-apologize, hemi-demi-semi-…) for introducing non-literary ("lit'rary") topics in what's purportedly a gay literary blog but since the "gay" is now out, or at least no longer de rigueur (see "Feb 19" in the sidebar) I declare equal standing for the lit'rary (out or no longer etc). Those of you who have been reading (or otherwise know) me know that I've been a big fan of Josh Thomas' Please Like Me. Well after watching only fifteen minutes of his new dramedy Everything's Gonna Be Okay I can report "His Dark Droll Humor Remains"! Broadcast on freeform (yes, Virginia, that's a channel: 699 on Verizon's FIOS) and streaming on Hulu (as are all 32 episodes of PLM). And for all of youse who get antsy without some print in your face, check out the Aunt Augusta of print-fittedness — seriously, his comments on gay casting will give everyone something not to apologize for (tho I'm always hoping for a reprise somewhere of the ever- or at least once-upon-a-time delectable

          Wade Briggs )

"A Derangement of All the Senses"

During last night's discussion of Illuminations, Keith Cohen shared this fascinating excerpt from Ruth Franklin's "Arse Poetica," which appeared in the Nov. 9, 2003, issue of The New Yorker:

In May 1871, Rimbaud wrote the two letters that have come to be known as the "Lettres du Voyant" ("Seer Letters")—the only explicit statements of his poetic credo. The first, addressed to Izambard, begins by insulting the teacher's "dry-as-dust subjective poetry" and includes a singsong ditty that crudely depicts anal intercourse. "Right now, I'm encrapulating myself as much as possible," the sixteen-year-old wrote. (Mason here substitutes a cognate for Rimbaud's coinage "je m' encrapule," which actually makes the poet sound overly scatological; others have translated it as "making myself scummy" or "lousing myself up.") "Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working to turn myself into a seer....It has to do with making your way toward the unknown by a derangement of all the senses ....I is someone else" ("Je est un autre"). The second letter, sent to Izambard's friend Paul Demeny, repeats and elaborates on the soon-to-be-famous pronouncement. "The first task of any man who would be a poet is to know himself completely; he seeks his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it," Rimbaud wrote. "The Poet makes himself into a seer by a long, involved and logical derangement of all the senses. Every kind of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself; he exhausts every possible poison so that only essence remains." Much has been made of the fact that Rimbaud added the qualifiers "long, involved and logical" to this second call for the "derangement of all the senses," nudging at the doors of perception rather than battering them down. But the sense is much the same; Rimbaud intends to turn his psyche inside out, to undergo whatever spiritual, emotional and physical tests he can devise. "Je" becomes "un autre" by deconstructing what it means to be "Je."

Getting to the Bottom of Rimbaud?

While doing some online research in preparation for last night's highly enjoyable discussion of John Ashbery's translation of Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations (a special tip of the hat to Keith Cohen for sharing his linguistic expertise), I came across "Making an Ass of Himself—'Bottom' by Arthur Rimbaud," an article by Gerald Macklin that appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of the French Studies Bulletin (Vol. 31, Issue 114). Most of it is behind a paywall, alas, but even this stump is intriguing:

‘Bottom’ has long been seen as an amusing and enigmatic text, one of several very short pieces in the Illuminations which appear to contain compressed meanings and elusive secrets. One thinks of ‘Guerre’, ‘Départ’ and ‘Royauté’ which are all just as cryptic in their brevity. The title ‘Bottom’ has been used as an interpretative key by many with the Shakespearean link to the character in A Midsummer Night's Dream appearing to justify Osmond's sense of the piece as ‘a sexual fiasco in three acts’. Sergio Sacchi goes down a similar path when he asserts ‘l’âne-Bottom rimbaldien ne séduit pas, comme le voulait Shakespeare, la reine des fées Titania' and there have been various other readings of the poem, reinterpreting the Shakespearean source along...

Waiting for Shuggie Bain

We seem to be in a gay proletarian renaissance … not a rebirth really, but a first birth, and centered on childhoods. First of course, Édouard Louis (whom we've read v.i.). Next Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous which I'm sure we'll read soon (or surely hope we will—soon!). And now Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, to be published next month.

In the meantime, readers can get a taste of Stuart's writing in last week's New Yorker : "Found Wanting". Shuggie (or someone very like him) dips his toe in the Glasgow pool of the last century's last decade (advert above). He gets many replies but responds first to a thirty-eight y.o. "Solicitor". No trigger warning, however. This is not Dennis Cooper. Indeed, prepare for a coup de (d)rôle!