Here are more LGBTQ-themed poems (not all by LGBTQ authors, I should note) which the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter featured this fall. Enjoy!
Ghazal of Oranges by Jan-Henry Gray
There Is No San Lenin by Chip Livingston
The Dream of the Anti-Ekphrasis by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi
Here is the first of three catch-up installments in my ongoing series of postings here, spotlighting LGBTQ poets whose work the American Academy of Poetry has featured via its Poem-a-Day newsletter (as well as a smattering of straight poets who have addressed such themes in their work). These poems were all featured this past fall. Enjoy!
Tasting the Last of the Ice Age by Susan McCabe
On Reading Allen Ginsberg's "Homework" by Andrea Carter Brown
Men Who Think I Am One of Them Speak by Stacey Waite
The Art of Shooting in the Dark by Denice Frohman
Barnes & Noble, 1999 by Jesus I. Valles
Singing Funeral by Fei Hernandez
My thanks to all Bookmen who responded to my recent survey about our meeting time and venues. Effective with our Jan. 4, 2023, meeting, our starting time will be 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. In addition, first Wednesday meetings will now take place at the Cleveland Park Library (3310 Connecticut Ave. NW) in the second-floor conference room, where we used to meet in the Before Times, rather than the DC Center. We will continue to meet via Zoom on third Wednesdays, also at 7 p.m. Kindly mark your brand-new calendars and appointment books accordingly. 😀
Today's "Book World" section of the Washington Post includes a page devoted to "The 15 best book covers of 2022." One of them is a Picador Press double-decker combining Michael Cunningham's The Hours with the Virginia Woolf novel that inspired it, Mrs. Dalloway. I found that selection particularly serendipitous because I, along with several other Bookmen, attended Regal Cinema's simulcast of "The Hours," the Metropolitan Opera production based on Cunningham's novel, just this past Wednesday. Alas, my new computer won't let me download the book's cover here, but just click on the above link to see why the Post raved about it.
Several years ago, we began incorporating non-LGBTQ books into our reading list on a roughly quarterly basis. That experiment has largely been successful. However, as I pointed out in a recent email to the group, one unintended consequence of that expansion is that it now takes us longer to finish the main titles on our list, because there are fewer dates on which to schedule discussions.
With that in mind, I have proposed that, effective in January, we discuss non-LGBTQ literature on fifth Wednesdays—or add those books to the rotation of anthologies and short works that we discuss on third Wednesdays (which means we will read fewer of them each year). If you’re a member of our merry band, please consider weighing in on this; thanks.
Toward that end, I received the following response from Patrick Flynn which he has authorized me to share here and now:
"I am not sure a non-LGBTQ selection has value (though I am enjoying The Satanic Verses). I would prefer we use that extra day to work on our nomination/selection criteria. What, after all, does the rubric mean, particularly for literature that was written before the terms were invented and/or people and characters came out in numbers? To illustrate, does the book The Secret Dublin Diary of Gerald Manley Hopkins, meet our criteria or not? I think you would say yes. But do his poems?"
Over the past 23+ years, our group has read dozens of books that reference HIV/AIDS. As we prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of the first World AIDS Day, on Dec. 1, here is a sampling of those titles:
Philip Clark, editor: Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (out of print, alas)
David B. Feinberg: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
Thom Gunn: The Man with Night Sweats
Larry Kramer: The Normal Heart
Michael Mancilla: Love in the Time of HIV
Armistead Maupin: Michael Tolliver Lives
Paul Monette: Borrowed Time
Randy Shilts: And the Band Played On
Back in July, we discussed Michael Cunningham's 2005 trilogy of interlocked novellas, Specimen Days. My hazy recollection of our discussion is that few if any of the attendees thought it was a great book, or even one of the author's best--but we had no trouble talking about it for the full hour, which says something. If you're still hungry for more discussion of it, the New York Times' T Magazine Book Club invites you to join Cunningham and novelist Nee Mukerjee for a virtual conversation about the novel on Thursday, Dec. 8. You can find out more, and RSVP, by going to this link.
This past summer, T Magazine assembled a panel of four authors, including Michael Cunningham, to identify "the 25 most influential New York City novels published between 1921 and 2021." Although the winners offer relatively little gay content, I still found the list useful as a reminder of several titles I've been meaning to read for years.
While on my annual culture vulture pilgrimage to New York City last month, I mentioned to the friend I was visiting that our group had discussed Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life back in 2018, and expressed interest in a theatrical adaptation of the novel being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Without a word, he handed me this New York Times review, and let's just say that was the end of that idea! Even if it had been a better production than it apparently was, seeing something four hours long in Dutch (with English supertitles) is certainly not my idea of a good time--or my friend's. Your mileage may vary, of course, but judging by the paucity of support for the nomination of Yanagihara's new book, To Paradise, for our 2023 reading list, I suspect not.
Back on Oct. 19, we discussed Ernst Haffner's 1932 novel, Blood Brothers. During our chat, Mike Mazza was kind enough to share a link to the Spanish-language version, which I am belatedly posting here. If you compare the edition we used for the discussion, you'll notice a rather different tone between the two covers.
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On Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, Rebel Santori Press will release Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski --edited by our very own Philip Clark and Michael Bronski, the poet's partner. As the press release notes, the collection "marks the return of a singular poet, Walta Borawski (1947-1994) for new generations to enjoy." Congratulations, Philip!
The book also kicks off the publisher's new imprint, The Library of Homosexual Congress, curated by Tom Cardemone and Sven Davisson, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting provocative works of gay literature, with a focus on the AIDS crisis.
NOTE: This list does not include books on the 2022 list that have not yet been scheduled, or our current anthology (Pages Passed from Hand to Hand). Nor does it include the quarterly non-LGBTQ selections.
FICTION
A Scarlet Pansy by Robert Scully
Better Angel by Forman Brown (writing as Richard Meeker)
City of Night by John Rechy
Death Trick (A Donald Strachey Mystery) by Richard Lipez (writing as Richard Stevenson)
Fadeout (A Dave Brandstetter Novel) by Joseph Hansen
Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic, translated from the Akkadian and with essays by Sophus Helle
Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy
Queer by William S. Burroughs
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
The Gold Diggers by Paul Monette
The Kingdom of Sand by Andrew Holleran
NON-FICTION
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller
Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington by James Kerchick
What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life by Mark Doty
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
Oscar Wilde: A Life by Matthew Sturgis
Who Killed My Father by Edouard Louis
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
ANTHOLOGIES
Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So
Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Paul Guran
Global Queer Plays: Seven LGBTQ+ Works from Around the World, by Danish Sheikh inter alia.
I've already thanked my fellow Bookmen via e-mail, but I also want to share in this channel the news that the nominations for our 2023 reading list encompass 35 titles! The nominees break down to 19 novels, six non-fiction works, six memoirs, biographies and autobiographies, a poetry collection, and three anthologies (and a partridge in a pear tree...:-) Thanks to everyone who submitted titles--now, please vote!
Normally, when I share LGBTQ poetry from the Poem-a-Day Foundation here, I give you the title, author's name and a link for each poem. But something about today's featured selection by Ariana Brown, "For everyone who tried on the slipper before Cinderella," touched me so deeply that I've decided to share the full text here:
after Anis Mojgani and Audre Lorde
For those making tea in the soft light of Saturday morning
in the peaceful kitchen
in the cool house
For those with shrunken hearts still trying to love
For those with large hearts trying to forget
For those with terrors they cannot name
upset stomachs and too tight pants
For those who get cut off in traffic
For those who spend all day making an elaborate meal
that turns out mediocre
For those who could not leave
even when they knew they had to
For those who never win the lottery
or become famous
For those getting groceries on Friday nights
There is something you know
about living
that you guard with your life
your one fragile, wonderful life
wonder, as in, awe,
as in, I had no idea I would be here now.
For those who make plans and those who don’t
For those driving across the country to a highway that knows them
For the routes we take in the dark, trusting
For the roads for the woods for the dead humming in prayer
For an old record and a strong sun
For teeth bared to the wind
a pulse in the chest
a body making love to itself
There is every reason to hate it here
There is a list of things making it bearable:
your friend’s shoulder Texas barbecue a new book
a loud song a strong song a highway that knows you
sweet tea an orange cat a helping hand
an unforgettable dinner
a laugh that escapes you and deflates you
like a pink balloon left soft with room
for goodness to take hold
For those who have looked in the mirror and begged
For those with weak knees and an attitude
For those called “sensitive” or “too much”
For those not called enough
For the times you needed and went without
For the photo of you as a child
quietly icing cupcakes your hair a crackling thunderstorm
Love is coming.
It’s on its way.
Look—
Copyright © 2022 by Ariana Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 14, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
As we get ready to nominate books for our 2023 reading list, several of you have already flagged two new novels. Andrew Holleran's The Kingdom of Sand came out in June, to wide acclaim; here's the New York Times review. And Andrew Sean Greer's Less Is Lost, the eagerly anticipated sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lost (which we discussed in January 2019) drops on Sept. 20. This NYT profile of Greer gives readers a detailed preview of the book; it certainly sounds like a hoot (and a holler)!
In anticipation of our upcoming discussion (this Wednesday) of Rodger Streitmatter's Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples, I wanted to highlight the couple portrayed in Chapter 6: J.S. Leyendecker and Charles Beach. Unlike some of the other figures Streitmatter profiles, I had actually heard of them before, thanks to a truly moving 2021 documentary, "Coded: The Hidden Love of J.C. Leyendecker," that I highly recommend. (I streamed it on the Paramount app.)
Leyendecker and Beach were also included in the National Portrait Gallery's 2010 exhibition, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," as were Janet Flanner and Solita Solano (Chapter 8) and Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns (Chapter 13). Here is a link to the handsome catalog.
