Some LGTBQ poetry to enjoy

It's been a while since I last compiled selections from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter (not all by LGBTQ+ poets, I should note), so I'm playing catchup here. These poems were disseminated between July and October; enjoy!

On the far side of pleasure by Samuel Ace

[earth & blood & mining dam-burst.] by Lucas de Lima

Song for the Luddites by Lord George Gordon Byron

Roller Coaster, Lightning Storm by Wo Chan

32-inch Aubade with Captions by Meg Day

Zero Hour by Dare Williams

Spring and Fall by Gerald Manley Hopkins

The Storm Surge, 1981-1992 by Kimberly Reyes

An Evening Discussion by Chen Chen

[Watch any day his nonchalant pauses] by W.H. Auden

Independence Day by Ocean Vuong

Love Lies Bleeding by Christina Rossetti

Wish We Were Daddies by francine j. harris

Jasmines by Claude McKay

To Let this Woman Love Me by E. Hughes

Michael Chabon coins a word

The dozen of us who gathered last week to discuss the first four parts of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), enjoyed a robust conversation about this epic book. During the discussion, I noted Chabon's coinage of the word "aetataurate" in Chapter 7 of Part IV (p. 340). Here is the sentence:

"During 1941, in the wake of that outburst of gaudy hopefulness, the World's Fair, a sizable portion of the citizens of New York City had the odd experience of feeling for the time in which they were living, at the very moment they were living in it, that strange blend of optimism and nostalgia which is the usual hallmark of the aetataurate delusion."

Even if you never took Latin, you could probably come up with a good guess of what the word means from the reference to nostalgia. But what I love about Chabon's nonce-word is that is he could have just said "golden age." Instead, he displayed the same love of language and wordplay that Sammy, Joe, Rosa and other characters in the novel do.

We'll discuss the last two sections of the novel on Nov. 4. Join us!

Librarians speak out

The New York Times recently interviewed dozens of attendees at the American Library Association's conference in Chicago, and published this compendium of short profiles. As the article notes, these librarians came from rural towns and major cities, elementary schools and universities, local branches and big government agencies.

Speaking as someone who worked in college libraries at a small institution (Centenary College, undergraduate) and a large one (George Washington University, grad school), I loved this heartwarming piece! It reminds me of so many librarians I've known over the years. So I wanted to share it with you all, even though it only has one interview centered on LGBTQ literature:

"A boy checked out a graphic novel about two boys who fall in love. He told me he’d never felt seen before in our tiny conservative Texas town. He was getting bullied and targeted for being who he was. The next year, when he went to high school, he sent me an email saying that having access to books like that made him feel seen and validated. He went on to shine."

Amanda Hunt, Central Texas school librarian

Thread weaving

When I posted the next two items, about Marlon James' novel, The Disappearers, and Nicholas Bogg's biography, Baldwin: A Love Story, I didn't know that the two authors have been partners since at least 2022 and live together. It's a small world, after all! 😃

Novel of the decade?

"With this novel about gay experience and murderous homophobia in Jamaica and elsewhere during the 1980s and ’90s, [Marlon] James has written a masterpiece, the novel of the decade and possibly of the century thus far."

That is how Dwight Garner opens his rave for Marlon James' latest novel, The Disappearers, in his New York Times review. Later, he says: "This is another way of saying The Disappearers was one of the signal reading experiences of my adult life. It sank knives deep into my heart. I’m still in recovery from it."

Although they generally haven't been quite that effusive, most other critics I've read concur with Garner's praise. One exception: Adam Mars-Jones, writing for the London Review of Books: "Somehow the book’s fierce purpose has been adulterated. Its portrait of a cruel society loses authority by including a made-up bogeyman, a hate figure exempted from any attempt at understanding. This does significant damage to a book whose harshness is only bearable if it is telling the truth."

Some of you may still recall our lively discussion back in 2020 of James' previous novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, which had similar heft and ambition. Some of us loved it, while others found it a joyless slog. I note that history because I will be nominating The Disappearers for next year's reading list, and anticipate it may elicit similarly passionate reactions. (Not that that's a bad thing! :-)

Fortune and Men's Eyes

Last year, I nominated Nicholas Boggs' magisterial biography of James Baldwin, Baldwin: A Love Story, for our reading list. It didn't get quite enough votes to make the cut, but I may put it forward for consideration again this year.

I'm finishing it now, and wanted to highlight a serendipitous connection between the bio and Marlon James' latest novel, The Disappearers (see the post above this one for more details about that). In the novel, a group of gay eight young black and mixed-race men in Kingston gather in private, in 1988, to rehearse a dangerous play: John Herbert’s “Fortune and Men’s Eyes” (1967), about prison life and degradation and sex acts, both desired and not. (One character refers to it as “Lord of the Flies with big people.”) Most if not all the actors are closeted gay men.

Believe it or not, James Baldwin directed a Turkish-language production of the play in Istanbul that ran from 1969 to 1970. Boggs' coverage of the episode in the biography is a tour de force.

Inspired by that coincidence, I really wanted to nominate Herbert's play for our reading list, but it's not in print and used copies are priced at $60 and up. Let us hope the Marlon James connection will spur some enterprising publisher to reissue the play. 🤞

Good news, BookMen shoppers!

As those of you who read Paul Rudnick's I'll Take It (which we discussed on July 1) know, the novel ends with the protagonist's family sticking up the L.L. Bean flagship store.

In real life, that location later closed for two years to undergo a $50 million upgrade. But Ted Coltman was kind enough to share this announcement that it is once again open. Thanks, Ted!

Let us all hope that the two-year closure of the Kennedy Center that its board just voted to undertake will be equally successful.