Ukrainian LGBTQ literature

Reporting that Russia has allegedly compiled lists of gay Ukrainians and LGBTQ organizations to imprison (or worse) made me curious what Ukrainian gay literature might look like. I didn't find much info online, but this article, "Ukrainian Queer Culture: A Difficult Birth," was helpful. It's an excerpt from a 2007 book by Vitaly Chernetsky titled Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization. For those interested in non-LGBTQ Ukrainian literature that has been translated into English, the New York Times has helpfully compiled two lists of six volumes each: history and fiction/memoirs.

Happy 100th Birthday, Jack K.!

The latest edition of Washington Post book critic Ron Charles' weekly Book Club newsletter reminds us that precisely a century ago today, Beat writer Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to French Canadian parents. As Charles observes, "English was his second language, but he left an indelible mark on it."

Although his tribute does not allude to Kerouac's bisexuality, there is no shortage of material online that discusses it. In particular, I recommend a 2019 Paris Review article, "The Queer Crime that Launched the Beats." While his Wikipedia entry never addresses the subject directly, contenting itself with a comment about homosexuality being one of many themes in On the Road, "Talk: Jack Kerouac," an archived set of Wikipedia discussion threads about his entry, explores the topic at length. 

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., New Yorker writer Amanda Petrusich will participate in a virtual discussion, sponsored by Politics & Prose, to consider the question "Does Jack Kerouac Still Matter?" The other guests will be Holly George-Warren, who's working on a new biography of Kerouac; the novelist A.M. Homes; and New York Times reporter John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of "On the Road" (They're Not What You Think).

And if you're in the mood to go on the road yourself (sorry), Kerouac@100--a committee that includes the Kerouac Estate and the Lowell National Historical Park--is celebrating the writer's centennial all year in Lowell (here's a full list of activities). 

Alternatively, Charles reports, you can get regular hits of Beat wisdom by following @DailyKerouac on Twitter. As Jack once asked, "Isn't this the time now to start following what I know to be true?"

W.H. Auden gets a Close Read

Although New York Times arts critic Jason Farago created Close Read, an interactive NYT feature that examines the intersections between art and culture (generally by zeroing in on a painting), in 2020, I only recently became familiar with it. I'm playing catch-up now and enjoying it very much. The latest installment explores W.H. Auden's poem, "Musee des Beaux Arts," and the painting it references, Bruegel's "The Fall of Icarus," while an earlier one looks at Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "One Art."

D.P. in the PD

Rejoice, fellow Friends of Dorothy (Parker): All the poems published in her 1926 collection, Enough Rope, are now available in the public domain. Ditto for "The Algonquin Hotel: Summer 1927," the introduction to Marion Meade's comprehensive 1989 biography, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? Here are some sample poems from Enough Rope:

"Epitaph for a Darling Lady"

"L'ENVOI"

"Nocturne"

"Pictures in the Smoke"

"Rainy Night"

Queering Black History

The latest edition of Lily Lines (formerly The Lily), the Washington Post's twice-weekly gender and identity newsletter, offers a list of "5 Black LGBTQ Pioneers to Know for Black History Month:" Lucy Hicks Anderson, Gladys Bentley, Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. I suspect Rustin is the most famous member of this group for most of us, both because he was a man and because we discussed John D'Emilio's biography, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, back in 2006. We also read about Bentley in George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1880-1940, which we discussed in 2009. And some of you may seen the recent film about Murray, "My Name Is Pauli Murray." But Anderson and Griffin-Gracy were new figures for me, at least; the latter is still going strong at 81, by the way.

Frank & Grace...

Among the many treasures at the Smithsonian American Art Museum is "Artist to Artist," a modest installation that's easy to miss but well worth a visit in its own right. Assembled from the museum's extensive 20th-century holdings, the exhibition features eight pairings of figures "whose trajectories intersected at a creatively crucial moment, whether as student and teacher, professional allies or ardently close friends." Two of the pairings include at least one LGBTQ figure--in this case, Frank O'Hara, along with his friend Grace Hartigan, a painter. (See the next item for a pair of gay men, both artists.)

...& George & Paul

And here, also from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "Artist to Artist" show, is the pairing of George Tooker and Paul Cadmus, both gay painters (and lovers, for a time):