Happy 205th Birthday, Walt!

The latest edition of Washington Post book critic Ron Charles' weekly Book Club newsletter (free to join even if you're not a Post subscriber, and highly recommended) contains this timely item. Enjoy!

Walt Whitman in a steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison. This image was used as the frontispiece in the 1855 edition of “Leaves of Grass.” (Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division)

Today is the anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth in 1819. He’s harder to catch these days, but as he once said, “If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” 

In the 1850s, as the United States was growing more violently contentious, Whitman was busy writing, revising and collecting his poems. The first edition of “Leaves of Grass” appeared in 1855. 

In a fit of generosity, Ralph Waldo Emerson sent him a note, saying, in part, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.” 

Without asking permission from the sage of Concord, Whitman excerpted that phrase and printed it in gold letters on the spine of his enlarged 1856 edition of “Leaves of Grass.” 

According to biographer Justin Kaplan, when Emerson got wind of that chutzpah, it was the first time his friends had ever seen him “truly angry.” 

And the rest of us have been dealing with book blurbs ever since.

Steve takes the cake

Last night, 11 of us gathered for a highly convivial evening celebrating the 25th anniversary of BookMen DC's founding (May 11, 1999, is the actual date). Here's to 25 more years!

Steps with Frank O'Hara and friends

I'm embarrassed to have missed this PBS program that aired back on May 20, but am relieved to report that it is available online: 

Steps Poetry in America

A portal into 1950s New York City, Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” have the feel of playing hooky: of roaming from museums to Central Park and sneaking into cinemas. Choreographer Mark Morris, poets Terrance Hayes, Robert Pinsky, Todd Colby, and Eileen Myles, and musical duo Rachael and Vilray join host Elisa New to read “Steps,” O’Hara’s ode to NYC art and dance.

Lavender Con is coming!

A tip of the hat to Michael North for alerting me to this upcoming event:

Welcome to Lavender Con, a book festival celebrating LGBTQIA+ authors and stories presented by Little District Books, Washington, DC's all-queer independent bookstore.

JUNE 29-30, 2024 at the National Press Club, Washington, DC

Buy Tickets

Never By Itself Alone

This past Wednesday evening, we had the pleasure of hearing from Philip Clark and Michael Bronski, editors of Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski.  (I encourage you to attend the Aug. 21 meeting where we’ll discuss the poems in the second half of the collection.)

Michael recommends the following Zoom event:

Author Talk with David Grundy

Thursday, May 23, 2024

6:00PM-7:00PM

Zoom

Free RSVP, Donations accepted

Join David Grundy, the author of Never By Itself Alone: Queer Poetry, Queer Communities in Boston and the Bay Area, for a virtual talk in conversation with Michael Bronski and Julie Enszer.

Please note this event has been rescheduled from 5/16 to 5/23 at 6PM. RSVP on Eventbrite.

Providing an unprecedented exploration of key moments in queer literary history, Never By Itself Alone changes our sense of both the American literary and political landscapes from the late 1940s through the 21st century. Grundy presents the first comprehensive history of post-war queer writing in Boston and San Francisco, intertwining analysis of lesbian, gay, and queer writing, and insisting on the link between activism and literature.

The book centers a host of underrepresented writers, especially writers of color and those with gender non-conforming identities, and challenges the Stonewall exceptionalism of queer historiography. Starting with Robert Duncan's 1944 essay, 'The Homosexual in Society', one of the first significant public defenses of homosexuality in the US, Grundy takes the reader through pioneering works by queer voices of the era, including Adrian Stanford's Black and Queer, the first published book by an out, Black gay poet in the US; the Boston collective Fag Rag and their radical reconsideration of family, private property and the State; the Combahee River Collective, whose Black Feminist analysis drew together race, class, and sexuality; the anthology This Bridge Called My Back, in which women of color spoke truth to power, together; and New Narrative writing, which audaciously mixed Marxism, porn and gossip while uniting against the New Right. Linking these works to the context which produced them, Grundy uncovers the communities formed around activism and small press publishing during this era and elevates neglected voices to narrate a history that before now has never been told in its entirety.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Never By Itself Alone is a rigorous and unmatched work of both literary criticism and queer scholarship which underscores the vital importance of radical accounts of race, class, and gender in any queer studies worthy of the name.

Rechyana

Following up on our recent discussion of John Rechy's City of Night, I think this excerpt from a 2022 post will interest those of you who are fans of his work: "I am most grateful to Octavio Roca for sharing a fascinating profile The LAnd magazine recently did of John Rechy, a gay writer I am chagrinned to admit I wasn't familiar with." 

Repurposing that blast from the past also gives me a chance to rectify a sin of omission. Responding to the original item, our friend Richard Schaefers shared this link "to a video interview done at UCLA when Rechy was 88--the top two buttons still unbuttoned." 😊 Apologies for failing to post this info back then, but better late than never, I trust. 

All about Gilgamesh

Back in March 2021, we discussed Andrew George's translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh. And later this year, we'll discuss Sophus Helle's take on that saga. In the meantime, to whet your appetite for that, you can hear from the author himself: 

“I see [Gilgamesh] as a composite entity. I see it as a place where all sorts of things, all sorts of voices, all sorts of cultural scripts, all sorts of historical circumstances, all sorts of intentions, all sorts of readerly projections [...] come together.” —Sophus Helle Join us for a deep dive into Gilgamesh’s poetry and history with Sophus Helle, celebrated scholar, translator, and cultural historian.  Three sessions: May 22, May 29, & June 5 2:30–3:45 p.m. EDT  Live over Zoom with recordings available   Book your spot Become a member of the Academy to receive 20% off tuition. For information on how to register, apply for a scholarship, access recordings and course materials, and more, visit the Literary Seminars FAQ page. For information about additional seminars being offered by the Academy, visit the Literary Seminars homepage.

Happy Birthday to us!

Exactly 25 years ago today, on May 11, 1999, what was originally known as the Potomac Gay Men's Book Group convened for its first meeting.  And we're still going strong a quarter-century later! For more details on our origin story, see the article in the current Washington Blade (p. 16).

Alfred Chester? He hardly knew her!

(I'm posting this item on behalf of our colleague Philip Clark.)

If anyone would like to find out more about Alfred Chester, the gay author of The Exquisite Corpse whom I mentioned when someone referenced his nasty review of John Rechy's City of Night during last week's discussion of that novel, I highly recommend Edward Field's recent collection, Voyage to Destruction: The Moroccan Letters of Alfred Chester. There's a lengthy, detailed discussion of Chester (which doubles as a review of the book) on the Grand website that serves as a fantastic primer on who he was. That should give you an idea of whether you'd like to read the collection.

LGBTQ poetry to get to know, Part II

These selections from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter appeared in March, April and May 2024.  Enjoy! 

Emesis                                                                        by    Keetje Kuipers

black aphrodite entertains a mortal lover                  by    Saida Agostini

Drag                                                                        by    Jan Beatty

Somehow                                                                by     Dorothy Chan

The Paper Nautilus                                                by    Marianne Moore

When the Fact of Your Gaze Means Nothing        by    Donika Kelly

O Malik! I pray thee go for the wine full early    by    Abu Nuwas

A Welcome                                                            by     Joanna Klink

The Centaur                                                           by    Miller Oberman 

Lost Letter                                                            by    Tory Adkisson

Diagnostic Quiz for Human Ghost                        by    James Fujinami Moore

Parable                                                                    by    Nickole Brown

harvest                                                             by Angela Penaredondo

LGBTQ poetry to get to know, Part I

As we prepare to discuss the first part of Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski, co-edited by our very own Philip Clark and Michael Bronski--both of whom will attend the May 15 session, I'm delighted to report--it's high time that I catch up on sharing the LGBTQ-themed poems (not all by LGBTQ poets, I should note) from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter. These poems were disseminated in January and February 2024. Enjoy!

From "The Land"                               by   Vita Sackville-West

The Lord's Corner                             by       Tyree Daye

Giornata 4                                          by    Gregory Pardlo

Hermaphrodite                                   by     Rickey Laurentiis

Phragmites                                         by     Kyle Carrero Lopez

Calculus I, II, III                                by     Brad Walrond

Sport                                                  by     Langston Hughes

Gills                                                   by     Rain Prud'homme-Cranford

Orino ka-n-an manbo emale             by     Alexis Pauline Gumbs

You're the Top                                   by     Ellen Bass