Thursday, December 29, 2022

Yet more LGBTQ poets to get to know, Part II

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! 


Overalls                                                         by Alan Pelaez Lopez


On Desire                                                       by Dejui Tahat


Mister                                                            by Oswaldo Vargas


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


Unarchaelogy of 'Father'                                    by George Abraham




At Sixty-Five                                                    by Henri Cole


Yet more LGBTQ poets to get to know, Part I

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


Wonder Wheel                                                by Wo Chan


The Art of Shooting in the Dark                    by Denice Frohman


Barnes & Noble, 1999                                    by Jesus I. Valles


Singing Funeral                                             by Fei Hernandez


Greensickness                                                 by Laurel Chen




Tuesday, December 20, 2022

New Year, New Schedule

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.  ðŸ˜€


Sunday, December 18, 2022

Two for One!

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.


Friday, December 9, 2022

Balancing the books

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?"


Wednesday, November 30, 2022

World AIDS Day: A BookMen reading list

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                                                                


Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Discuss "Specimen Days" with the author

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.



25 Influential NYC Novels

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.


A bullet (over off-Broadway) dodged...

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.



"Blood Brothers" en Español

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. 



Thursday, November 10, 2022

Making the Invisible Visible

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.




 

Friday, November 4, 2022

Ite lista est: BookMen DC's 2023 reading list

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.


Monday, October 31, 2022

Happy Halloween!

Although I am a longtime subscriber to the New Yorker, I am hopelessly behind on reading it. Ditto for the  many items the magazine posts to its Culture Desk blog, such as this essay by Nell Stevens: "What Ghost Stories Taught me about My Queer Self." In it, Nell Stevens discussing growing up gay in England while "promoting homosexuality" was still illegal, and recalls the literary works that comforted her and inspired her eventual coming out--many of them horror and suspense stories. (Oh, well: At least I'm posting this before the witching hour!)

Back in June, Stevens published a novel, Briefly: A Delicious Life, whose setup sounds quite, well, delicious: "In 1473, 14-year-old Bianca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly 400 years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Bianca is still there. A spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she's been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and townspeople and keeping track of her descendants."

Who Killed My Father


While in London last month, I caught an International Theater Amsterdam production, in association with the Young Vic, of "Who Killed My Father," based on the Edouard Louis memoir that will be on our next reading list. (We discussed his first memoir, The End of Eddy, back in 2017.) The play is quite intense and very good. I believe the author originated the role himself.  

I agree with everything Arifa Akbar says in her review of the play in The Guardian, but would add one detail. In the midst of all the intensity, there is a moment of humor (in a banal sense, anyway) when Eddy talks about obsessively watching the film "Titanic" as a boy. While the film plays on the console television on the stage, he does an imitation of Leonardo DiCaprio (or is he doing Kate Winslet?) on the front of the ship. 

 

Friday, October 14, 2022

It's that time again!

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!


"For everyone who tried on the slipper..."

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:

For everyone who tried on the slipper before Cinderella

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.


Thursday, September 22, 2022

Here's a Handy P & P Flow Chart

My thanks to Mike Mazza for sharing this diagram listing all the characters (and their relationships) in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which we discussed last night as our quarterly non-LGBTQ book. And, of course, I couldn't resist the temptation to share this iconic image from the 2005 BBC adaptation. (OK, I didn't even try to resist...:-)



Saturday, September 17, 2022

More of Less

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)!


Sunday, September 4, 2022

Deciphering the Code

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



It's (a) Library Thing

Grant Thompson was kind enough to share this roundup of "Pre-1969 LGBTQ Literature" from the Library Thing blog, containing 100 titles. While acknowledging the "wealth of Pride reading lists that highlight some of the great books of today," the creators of this Pride Month list want to "draw attention to LBGTQ books from an earlier period." As with all such compilations, it is necessarily idiosyncratic, and one can certainly quibble both with what made the list and what didn't. But as we prepare to nominate books for our own reading list (stay tuned for more details on that annual exercise), this is a useful resource. 

Sunday, August 21, 2022

More LGBTQ poets to get to know, Part III

It turns out that the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter has featured almost as many LGBTQ poems during August as it did back in June (go figure!), so I'm devoting this posting to them. Enjoy!



Rose Song                                                    by Anne Reeve Aldrich

At Sainte-Marguerite                                    by Trumbell Stickney

Not                                                                by Stephanie Cawley

Purple-Flowered Tree                             by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

awaiting a carriage, any                                by Bernard Ferguson

Fracture                                                        by Ellen Bass

house hunting as an act of faith                    by t'ai freedom ford

The Depths of the Grass                                by Michael Field


More LGBTQ poets to get to know, Part II

And here are LGBTQ poems (not all by LGBTQ authors, I should note) which the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter featured during June and July. Enjoy!

One Girl                                                    by Sappho

our general banality                                by fahama ife

Mentally missturbed                                by Ava Hofmann

My Love                                                    by Bruce Nugent

I Want                                                        by Jordan Jace


The Pool                                                    by Bryher

Do not trust the eraser                                by Rosamond S. King


stilettos in a rifle range                                by Tyrone Williams