Queereaders discussion

Discuss here. Does not have to be exclusively LGBT.

I really liked Shag by Sue Vickerman and Lady Business - A Celebration of Lesbian Poetry, ed. Bryan Borland. Other good poetry books I've read recently that happen to be by queer authors include Poet Wrangler: droll poems, The Day Was Warm and Blue, Poems For Teeth, Ode 2 Codes & Codfish, Titania's Daughter, and Fact.

Forgive me for mentioning my own poetry book, The Horizontal Poet, but it did win a Lambda Literary Award -- for "Bisexual Nonfiction," because there was no "Bisexual Poetry" category.

I've just started reading some of the poems of Mikhail Kuzmin as found in Out of the Blue: Russia's Hidden Gay Literature; An Anthology

Here is the opening of one:

“Where shall I find a style to catch a stroll,
Chablis on ice, a crisply toasted roll,
The agate succulence of cherries ripe?
The sunset's far, the ocean's splashing cool
Can offer solace to a sunburned nape.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1199...

Now to my (seemingly never-ending, multi-part) question...

Is anyone familiar with this poet?
Has anyone read this in the original Russian?
Is the style referred to in the poem...
a style as in a title of nobility or
style as in an elegant mode of living or
a style as in an opening in a fence which allows the passage of people but not livestock?

Anyone?

Thanks Nancy for this thread...

I know, I've been taken up by other things in life... There is so much to say, and in a way, I thought maybe I should have started with Sappho, but no... I think I'll start with W H Auden...

I remember reading Auden when I was about fifteen, for school. I remember that, although I could not put my finger on it, there was something I was partially aware I could not get about Auden. There was something that was 'almost there' but I could not see... I think this is the impression many people get of Auden... It wasn't till much later, when I ended up in academia that I could concentrate on this astoundingly innovative poet. I say astoundingly innovative because he is one of those rare cases where a poet has his/her own Aesthetics: basically you can't read Auden in the same way as you read most other poets, you need to approach his poetry from a different perspective, you need to gear up your mind to his way of conveying imagery...

You need to start with 'warming up' your senses to his perception of the world. That changes the relationship between how the reader and the poem interact, and that is an outstanding achievement. I still wonder whether the speculation that his sexual orientation was the reason why he never received the Nobel. He certainly deserved it.

Let us go back to the process of reading poetry itself. If one reads poetry to find out what happens in a poem, one cannot appreciate the very poetry in what one reads. It is basically, from a literary point of view, a futile activity.

If one reads poetry in order to explore themes, one learns something about the themes, but doesn't necessarily engage with the poem.

If one reads poetry to create pictures in one's mind, then one engages with poetry, appreciates her (I don't apologise for the use of the feminine, Calliope is female for a reason). Of poems that use visual imagery to the level of sublimity, Dante's Commedia is the most influential text of all time, so influential that it has created our own collective 'picture' of what the after life is like...

However, it is only when one reads poetry as a sound that one really feels poetry. It is the sound of the words that link poetry to her own birth: poetry and music are, in fact, Siamese twins. Milton, in his opus, moved the shift from images carried by sounds to sounds creating images in Western civilisation, and this is enough to put him on the very summit of the Olympus of Poesy, with Dante, Virgil and Homer.

The greatness of Aden lies in how he shifts both the visual and the musical direction of poetry. What Auden's poetry 'is about' is space. We, in our limited daily experiencing of the world, tend to think of space as emptiness, yet, as we know quite well, space is not just full, but it is necessary for the existence of the very waves that are, in our mental dimension, sounds, thus Poetry.

Moving the place of poetry from the sound (what our mind makes of waves in space) to space itself is freeing poetry from the limitations and constraints of the human mind.

His work as a poet is a work for freedom, which I believe reflects his sexuality: in his travelling around the world to escape homophobia and persecution, he discovered that freedom does not lie in a place, but in space and movement themselves.

The relationship between space and movement is fundamental in his poetry and aesthetics: you will see that circles are drawn around the speaker when the dark reflections of Nazism encircle his soul, you will find that vectors are created by words when the poem finds a way out... The very imagery created in his poem is not one of 'given pictures and symbols', redefining the whole relationship between Literature and semantics, but born from the very power of the human mind to redesign, like a demiurge, an architect of metaphysics, the very space that allows both the visual arts and music, this poetry to exist.

O What Is the Sound

O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.

O what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.

O what are they doing with all that gear,
What are they doing this morning, morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear,
Or perhaps a warning.

O why have they left the road down there,
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in their orders, dear,
Why are you kneeling?

O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
Haven't they reined their horses, horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
None of these forces.

O is it the parson they want, with white hair,
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.

O it must be the farmer that lives so near.
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
And now they are running.

O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.

O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.

W. H. Auden

God, I love Auden. Thanks for that poem today, Adriano.

I'm now inspired to read more Auden thank you

Ozymandias by Percy Shelly and The Hollow Men by T.S Elliot are two of my favorite poems. I'd post them here but they are far too long to do so :) I suggest giving them a read if you haven't already though.

Chris wrote: "Ozymandias by Percy Shelly and The Hollow Men by T.S Elliot are two of my favorite poems. I'd post them here but they are far too long to do so :) I suggest giving them a read if you haven't alread..."

Shelley.. You know I had a crush on Shelley when I was 18ish? One on Shelley and one on Madonna (yes, the latter says a lot, especially as I dressed 'like a virgin'...anyway...) I saw Shelly as the young revolutionary and spiritual at the same time... There is a little gem by PBS which I am not sure many people know...

'A Dirge'

Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main,--
Wail, for the world’s wrong!

It is nice to see how Shelley was ahead of his times and this poem can be seen as creating Poe's 'Complex Effect' as Poe's own 'The Raven'. Short though this poem is, it has taught me more about the beauty of the Music of words than many other longer and more famous poems...

We are the hollow men,
We are the stuffed men
Headpiece filled with straw

When we whisper all together
Our voices are dry and meaningless
Like wind over dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass

(I'm quoting from memory, there might be commas in the wrong place, forgive me...)

These lines are still so emblematic of the contemporary condition of the Human Being in today's society... Yet it is almost 100 years old... I wonder how much progress we have made as a species...

What I feel one could add to the role of the hollow men is that when they hear a nightingale, they 'whisper it down into silence' nowadays...

Adriano wrote: "Thanks Nancy for this thread...

I know, I've been taken up by other things in life... There is so much to say, and in a way, I thought maybe I should have started with Sappho, but no... I think I'..."

Thanks for quoting the poem. I love Auden, too.

Ozymandias and The Hollow Men are both wonderful poems! Embarrassing admission: I first discovered The Hollow Men because I was watching an episode of a children's horror show called the Haunting Hour with my nephew. A character quoted a few lines of the poem, and they were striking enough to remember; later I did a web search to find the rest of it.

I like a wide range of poetry, Denise Levertov, John Donne, Coleridge, Muriel Rukeyser, to name a few. Right now, I'm reading a copy of poems by stephen spender that I found in a used book store, and I'm enjoying it immensely!

#23
by Stephen Spender

Your body is stars whose million glitter here:
I am lost amongst the branches of this sky
Here near my breast, here in my nostrils, here
Where our vast arms like streams of fire lie.

How can this end? My healing fills the night
And hangs its flags in worlds I cannot near.
Our movements range through miles, and when we
   kiss
The moment widens to enclose long years.
   *   *   *
Beholders of the promised dawn of truth
The explorers of immense and simple lines,
Here is our goal, men cried, but it was lost
Amongst the mountain mists and mountain pines.

So with this face of love, whose breathings are
A mystery shadowed on the desert floor:
The promise hangs, this swarm of stars and flowers,
And then there comes the shutting of a door.

C.P. Cavafy
I've lost the copy from my youth. Don't know the translator either. Any comment on different translations? Leaning towards the Rae Dalven -- The Complete Poems.

Just one of the poets I discovered in the old The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse.

When Nancy so beautifully opened the thread, I was thinking of paying homage to the very first poetess Westen civilisation knows of, if course, the Godmother of all lesbian Literature... Yes, lesbians were there first... So here's her 'Hymn to Aphrodite', how better to start as with a celebtation of the Goddess of Love herself?


Ποικιλόθρον᾽ ὰθάνατ᾽ ᾽Αφροδιτα,
παῖ Δίοσ, δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε
μή μ᾽ ἄσαισι μήτ᾽ ὀνίαισι δάμνα,
πότνια, θῦμον.

ἀλλά τυίδ᾽ ἔλθ᾽, αἴποτα κἀτέρωτα
τᾶσ ἔμασ αύδωσ αἴοισα πήλγι
ἔκλυεσ πάτροσ δὲ δόμον λίποισα
χρύσιον ἦλθεσ

ἄρμ᾽ ὐποζεύξαια, κάλοι δέ σ᾽ ἆγον
ὤκεεσ στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶσ μελαίνασ
πύκνα δινεῦντεσ πτέῤ ἀπ᾽ ὠράνω
αἴθεροσ διὰ μέσσω.

αῖψα δ᾽ ἐχίκοντο, σὺ δ᾽, ὦ μάσαιρα
μειδιάσαισ᾽ ἀθάνατῳ προσώπῳ,
ἤρἐ ὄττι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι
δἦγτε κάλημι

κὤττι μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι
μαινόλᾳ θύμῳ, τίνα δηὖτε πείθω
μαῖσ ἄγην ἐσ σὰν φιλότατα τίσ τ, ὦ
Πσάπφ᾽, ἀδίκηει;

καὶ γάρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέωσ διώξει,
αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ ἀλλά δώσει,
αἰ δὲ μὴ φίλει ταχέωσ φιλήσει,
κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα.

ἔλθε μοι καὶ νῦν, χαλεπᾶν δὲ λῦσον
ἐκ μερίμναν ὄσσα δέ μοι τέλεσσαι
θῦμοσ ἰμμέρρει τέλεσον, σὐ δ᾽ αὔτα
σύμμαχοσ ἔσσο.


Or...

Rainbow-throned Aphrodite, immortal
Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now beseech you,
Don't - beg you, Lady - with pains and torments
Crush down my spirit,
But before if ever you've heard my pleadings
Then return, as once when you left your father's
Golden house; you yoked to your shining car your
Wing-whirring sparrows;
Skimming down the paths of the sky's bright ether
On they brought you over the earth's black bosom,
Swiftly--then you stood with a sudden brilliance,
Goddess, before me;
Deathless face alight with your smile, you asked me
What I suffered, who was my cause of anguish,
What would ease the pain of my frantic mind, and
Why had I called you
To my side: "And whom should Persuasion summon
Here, to soothe the sting of your passion this time?
Who is now abusing you, Sappho? Who is
Treating you cruelly?
Now she runs away, but she'll soon pursue you;
Gifts she now rejects--soon enough she'll give them;
Now she doesn't love you, but soon her heart will
Burn, though unwilling."
Come to me once more, and abate my torment;
Take the bitter care from my mind, and give me
All I long for; Lady, in all my battles
Fight as my comrade.

Oh, how gorgeous, Adriano! Thanks for including that. As a bisexual woman, though, I'd like to point out that all evidence is that Sappho was bisexual. I don't want to get into a fight with my lesbian sisters over whether Sappho was lesbian or bi -- I think we can all be proud of her-- but I do feel like failing to acknowledge her bisexuality is yet another instance of the bi erasure too often indulged in by our society.

Jan wrote: "Oh, how gorgeous, Adriano! Thanks for including that. As a bisexual woman, though, I'd like to point out that all evidence is that Sappho was bisexual. I don't want to get into a fight with my lesb..."

You are right, I stand pleasantly corrected. On a little side note, as I am for equality throughout the spectrum, I have a little gripe to add to your comment. Often, BT in LGBT are a bit neglected. Being part of the G, the most talked about part of our community, I often feel we G don't do enough to support LBT... It's just a feeling I have, nothing I can quantify. Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy, who knows...

Aw, thanks, Adriano. You made my evening.

Jan wrote: "Aw, thanks, Adriano. You made my evening."

Cheers!

Now, now, has anyone ever thought about one of my favourite poets, the Queen of Soul-Searching, the one and only Emily Dickinson as queer? I will say that she was queer insofar as all her poetry is about the pain of not fitting in, still, I can hear voices grumbling in the background (coming from other fora, not this one) that we know too little about her private life... Well, well, it appears that recent studies show she had a special affection for her sister-in-law, and this poem was found with the word 'nature' crossed out, and the word 'Susan' put in instead...

What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far —
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar

Whose limit none have ever seen,
But just his lid of glass —
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss's face!

The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands next the sea —
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.

It's a good guess that Emily was queer. I've never been able to get past the fact that everything she wrote can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

Brian Teare I just read poetry by this poet. He teaches at Temple University here in Philly. Sight Map: Poems

Queer poets I really admire are Henri Cole
Randall Mann Thom Gunn

Adriano wrote: "Jan wrote: "Aw, thanks, Adriano. You made my evening."

Cheers!

Now, now, has anyone ever thought about one of my favourite poets, the Queen of Soul-Searching, the one and only [author:Emily Dicki..."

Yes, Emily definitely has to be queerish. I mean who but a queer could write something like this:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson: I was taught to believe so. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present told me about her "love letters" to Sue Gilbert. It explains that they had intense emotions that weren't seen as abnormal for friendship in the 19th century, but that the 20th century saw as perverse, so that biographers bowdlerized letters. Emily's letters to Sue were censored when "intense friendship had fallen into disrepute."

Yes, I think she qualifies as queer on many levels; the fact that she felt a huge pain for not fitting in, a d possible lesbian passions.

As we are finding out queer poems that the mainstream claims... How about the fair youth sonnets by the Bard?

Hi Adriano. I just read Shakespeare's Sonnets again recently. Queer as, of course. With puns to prove it.

Bryn wrote: "Hi Adriano. I just read Shakespeare's Sonnets again recently. Queer as, of course. With puns to prove it."

Yes, what I found silly is how academia in the past, rather than contemplating that Shakespeare might have been bi, even thought about denying his existence or changing his sex (she still would have been bi, wouldn't she?)

Yup. I read this book on the Sonnets that is so funny with its mockery of scholars past and how they dodged the blindingly obvious truth: Such Is My Love: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I mean, it's sad, aside from funny.

This edition is known for being the first that doesn't dodge, deny, ignore or tread uncomfortably around the issue. Good intro, also on scholarship's poor past: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Bryn wrote: "Yup. I read this book on the Sonnets that is so funny with its mockery of scholars past and how they dodged the blindingly obvious truth: [book:Such Is My Love: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets|228..."

Yes, I agree, sad as well as stupid. It says a lot about how things get twisted to suit conformist views...

If I'm allowed, I'd like to post one of my poems on here. I'm a big advocate for anti-bullying and my poems are based around that.

Did you see me? Did you care?
by
Michael Andrews


Did you see me over there?
Did you stop to stand and stare?
As I lived my daily grind
With shoves and punches from behind.

Every day I lived in fear
Of names like gay and fag and queer.
The taunts of bullies to my face
That made me come to hate the place.

Teachers lacked the time to help
I was left in pain to yelp,
As punches came from everywhere
My life was turned to a nightmare.

All because I liked a boy
And how he filled my life with joy.
Until that boy spurned my advance,
His hatred left me in a trance.

Of endless suffering and pain
My humiliation was their gain.
To stroke the egos of the crowd
Who watched their actions and allowed

My torment to continue daily
As their laughter rang out gaily.
As the bullies stopped and said
“Why don’t you just drop down dead!”

No-one came forward from the mass
To put a bully on his ass.
Instead they watched as I was held,
My breath from lungs always expelled

By punches to my sides and ribs.
They took their turns, calling dibs
On who could hit me more than most,
My easy life was turned to toast.

So when you saw me sitting there,
All alone, did you care?
Did you think to say hello?
Which may have set my day aglow.

With thoughts that maybe someone did
Care enough to like this kid.
This kid who’s life was without hope
And ended with a knotted rope.

Who’s family are left to grieve,
Who prey and beg and must believe
By telling you about his pain
That this could not happen again.

To another boy or girl or child
Who’s pain to you seems only mild.
But to them sat there without a friend
Sometimes it seems the only end.

Is to tread the path many have trodden
With teary faces and cheeks sodden.
As they duplicate my fate
To end their lives so filled with hate.

If you were one to stand and stare,
Did this mean you did not care?
Or could you make a difference now
And so step forward with a vow.

To stop the bullies before they start
To cause such pain, to break a heart.
To stop them before it’s too late
And send another to my fate.

So stand up tall, consider this
As they stare into the abyss.
You can help and you can mend
Their life by simply being a friend.

To let them know that you do care
And tell everyone that is there.
There has never been a better time
To stop the bullies and hate crime!

Bravo. I loved some of the sentiments and experiences you touched on.

You should post this in your "My Writings" section so that people can "like" it.

(Not sure if that's open to GoodReads authors... I'm NOT a GoodReads author so here's a link to the section I mean (for my stuff)https://www.goodreads.com/story/list/...)

Michael wrote: "If I'm allowed, I'd like to post one of my poems on here. I'm a big advocate for anti-bullying and my poems are based around that.

Did you see me? Did you care?
by
Michael Andrews

Did you see m..."

Hello Michael,

I like the double perspective in your poem.

George Gordon Lord Byron had his own homosexual flings; I suppose that makes him bisexual, in fact one of the reasons why he left Britain, some say the main (though I think the fact that he had debts may be added to it), was that hostility towards non-straight relationships was making his life hard. He was surely in love with anther upper class guy, John FittzGibbon, to whom these lines from 'Childish Recollections' are addressed:

LYCUS! on me thy claims are justly great:
Thy milder virtues could my Muse relate,
To thee, alone, unrivall'd, would belong
The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song
Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit,
A Spartan firmness, with Athenian wit:
Though yet, in embryo, these perfections shine,
LYCUS! thy father's fame will soon be thine.
Where Learning nurtures the superior mind,
What may we hope, from genius thus refin'd;
When Time, at length, matures thy growing years,
How wilt thou tower, above thy fellow peers!
Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free,
With Honour's soul, united beam in thee.

I've been browsing a bit and found a page on Gay.Literature.com with contemporary LGBT poems (mainly gay):

http://www.gay-literature.com/texts/p...

I've found this poem, 'A Lady Nonetheless'; I can't copy it here, because I suppose it's copyrighted, but here's the link: http://allpoetry.com/poem/5867033-A-L...

For any of you who write poetry:

Here's a link to a call for submissions for the first anthology of bi poetry, by editor Sheela Lambert, founder and President of the Bi Writers Association and editor of Best Bisexual Stories (Gressive Press, 2014). Would love to be published with you! Please submit if you have any poems that would work!

http://www.biwriters.org/anthology-su...

Deadline: Sept 23, 2015 Bi Visibility Day