Last but definitely not least, these selections from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter appeared in November and December 2023. Enjoy!
A Marriage at Ancestral Hall in Sun Village by Shelley Wong
East of Wyoming, I Remember Matthew Shepard by Ruben Quesada
Corsair by Cyrus Cassalls and Brian Turner
Funeral for Unreturned Ashes by Travis Chi Wing Lau
I hadn't realized just how long it's been (four months!) since I last posted a compilation of LGBTQ-themed poems (not all by LGBTQ poets, I should note) from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter. So I'm playing catchup on that, in this and the next two postings. These poems were disseminated in September and October 2023. Enjoy!
Breath for Metal by Ching-in Chen
Ode to People Who Hate Me by Carmen Giménez
Decolonialish Self-Portrait by Sara Borjas
You, Emblazoned by Cass Donish
She Passed This Way by Djuna Barnes
'Tis the season for the making of "Best books of the year" lists! (Scroll down for posts featuring lists from the New York Times and Washington Post.) Now it's the turn of Vanity Fair to share its "20 Best Books to Read in 2023," a category that contains four LGBTQ titles: The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz; Biography of X by Catherine Lacey; Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas; and the seemingly ubiquitous Blackouts by Justin Torres, which has landed on just about every list of great 2023 books. Enjoy!
In today's installment of Michael Dirda's weekly column for Book World in the Washington Post, he cites 14 books that aren't bestsellers but are worth reading. One of them is the handwritten manuscript of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, available from Editions des Saints Peres (but not via Amazon), which we''ll be reading next year. The other, which is what mainly prompted me to post this item, is Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters. In his summary, Dirda name-checks several LGBQ connections on this day, Dec. 3:
"In 1950, James Agee was happily at work on the script for 'The African Queen'...and in 1958, the actor John Gielgud was busily cruising gay bars in San Francisco. Finally, on Dec. 3, 1967, the poet Thom Gunn wrote chattily to a friend about 'Bonnie and Clyde,' and a visit from the novelist Christopher Isherwood, who reminisced about how sexy and attractive W.H. Auden used to be.'
Although we won't get to Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle until next spring, the New York Times is marking the 50th anniversary of its fall 1973 publication with a wonderful roundup of reactions to the novel from a host of musicians and writers. I especially like this photo of the author, both because it captures her personality so well and because its caption reminds us of her strong connection to Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. Brown was a founding member of The Furies Collective, a separatist lesbian feminist community in D.C. that purchased and lived in two houses. The experiment only lasted a year (1971-1972), but its example remained influential long afterward. Brown went on to earn a doctorate in political science from the Institute for Public Studies in D.C.
JEB (Joan E. Biren)
We're now halfway through "Fellow Travelers," the eight-part Showtime/Paramount + miniseries. Based on Thomas Mallon's 2007 novel Fellow Travelers, it has an openly gay cast, headed by Matt Bomer as Hawkins Fuller and Jonathan Bailey as Timothy Laughlin. (We discussed the book back in 2008, and several of you have suggested we revisit it on our next list.) While the critics' reviews have been mixed, they're mostly positive. However, a good friend of mine maintains Bailey is miscast, being too old and tall to fit the novel's description of the character. He's right on the merits, but I find Bailey's strong performance overcomes such inconsistencies, and I strongly recommend the series.
Here are some links to check out if you're still on the fence about watching "Fellow Travelers":
Washington Post Live interview of Ron Nyswander, creator/executive producer of the series
New York Times profile of Nyswander
New Yorker review
Vanity Fair review
Patrick Flynn kindly brought this recent Guardian article to my attention: "It never ends: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake." Its founder, Gerry Fialka, describes the club, based in Venice, California, this way: "more a performance art piece than a book club ... a living organism, a hootenanny ... a choir." Speaking as a choir director myself, I know exactly what he means with that final metaphor--and I think it applies to at least some of our own discussions, too. 😀
Our friend Ken Jost was kind enough to share an email from the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus which, in addition to describing the group's upcoming activities, alerted me to a bookseller I wasn't familiar with: ShopQueer. It's an independent bookshop that splits its profits with queer authors, doubling their income from the sale of a book. As if that weren't enough incentive, you get a 20% discount on your first order after signing up for the newsletter. I applied mine to Justin Torres' Blackouts, which sounds like a good candidate for our 2025 reading list. Thanks, Ken!
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Back in 2006, we read John D'Emilio's Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. I don't know to what extent "Rustin," the new film about him, is based on that biography, but there is bound to be plenty of overlap at a minimum. In theaters this week, and on Netflix starting Nov. 17, the film stars Colman Domingo in the title role and tells the story behind the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. former President Barack Obama is among the producers. Its director, George Wolfe, describes Rustin as "an American hero, who not only contributed to one of the most significant demonstrations that has happened in this country, but a man who also wrote the book on how to stage such an event." I can't wait to see "Rustin!"
In June 2022, I reported here that the Library of Congress had just awarded the Kluge Humanities Prize to George Chauncey, making him the first scholar in LGBTQ+ studies to be so honored. (Chauncey is probably best known for his groundbreaking 1994 study, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940.) The award, which is conferred every two years and comes with a $500,000 prize, is intended to recognize scholarship that resonates both inside and outside academia. In fulfillment of that honor, Chauncey created a three-part video series titled "Through History to Equality." All three installments are now available online: "From Sexual Regulation to Antigay Discrimination," "Why Marriage Equality Became a Goal," and "AIDS: A Tragedy and a Turning Point."
When our Nov. 1 selection, James Leo Herlihy's Midnight Cowboy, was nominated for the reading list, it was in print. As I've discovered the hard way, that is no longer the case. Being old school, I ordered a used copy, which I just got after several frustrating weeks. But the good news, shared by new member Tim Hennessey (thanks!), is that the audiobook version is narrated by Michael Urie of "Ugly Betty" fame (among many other stage credits) and is remarkably affordable. So if you haven't already procured a copy, I encourage you to go that route. I may just do so myself even though I now have the hardcover.
A friend recently did me a great kindness by lending me a book that came out in March and received a rave review in the New York Times, yet I hadn't heard of it: In Memoriam by Alice Winn. (Why the Washington Post totally overlooked it, I have no idea, but it's a shame.) Set in World War I, the novel--Winn's first--contains elements of Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and several other books, but it remains fresh and original in its treatment of a love story between two teenage boys attending the same school. It's one of the best things I've read in a long time, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Tomorrow, we will discuss the final three stories in the late Anthony Veansa So's posthumously published collection, Afterparties. But happily, that's not the end of the story (pun very much intended). Mike Mazza has alerted me to the fact that in December, Harper Collins will publish another collection of So's works. Songs on Endless Repeat will gather his previously published essays, along with fiction that has never before been published.
I thank everyone who nominated books and voted for them. Here are the results.
Note that the list includes books on our 2023 list that have not yet been scheduled (marked with an asterisk), as well as a current anthology that will carry over into next year. It does not include our quarterly non-LGBTQ selections.
Silas Stephens kindly let me know about a free online panel discussion of Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, which we discussed last month as our fifth-Wednesday, non-LGBTQ selection, on Tuesday, Oct. 3, from 8-9:30 p.m. Next month marks the 30th anniversary of the visionary novel's publication, and to celebrate, the publisher (Four Walls Eight Windows) will convene an interactive panel discussion moderated by Isis Asare, a queer Afrofuturist. I plan to attend!
The current edition of "News Is Out" (an excellent source of LGBTQ news from around the nation that I subscribe to and heartily recommend) offers a useful compilation of "20 books that celebrate diverse bi + experiences." Although I've read other books by a couple of the authors (most prominently, Carey McQuiston of Red, White and Royal Blue fame), all these titles, and most of the writers, were new(s) to me. But I intend to keep them in mind for our 2025 reading list. (I'm almost ready to unveil the 2024 list; stay tuned!)
Here are more selections from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletters featuring poems with LGTBQ themes (but not always by LGBTQ poets). Enjoy!
Once again, it's time for another compilation of LGBTQ-themed poems (not all by LGBTQ poets, I should note) which the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletters has featured, so I'm playing catchup on that, in this and the next two postings. These poems were disseminated this past summer. Enjoy!
