1973 photograph by Jill Krementz, via Wikimedia Commons James Merrill (1926 - 1995 ) was a beautiful man who wrote beautiful poetry. His work is autobiographical in source and theme, but never particularly confessional. Merrill was the only child of Charles E. Merrill, … [Read more...]
#QueerQuote: “All That You Can Imagine You Already Know.” – Stephen Spender
Wikimedia Commons, public domain Stephen Spender (1909 - 1995) "All that you can imagine you already know." In the 1930s, London-born Spender was one of the young poets who gave a new direction to English literature by insisting that poetry was political. Spender … [Read more...]
Remembering British Poet, W.H. Auden on His 116th Birthday
W.H. Auden (1907 - 1973): "My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain." He lived a life filled with contradictions; English poet Wystan Hugh Auden was a moralist who drank too much, a gay man who thought homosexuality was wicked, a subversive who chose to write … [Read more...]
#QueerQuote, Black History Month Edition: “Your Silence Will Not Protect You.” – Audre Lorde
Photo by Elsa B. Dorfman, public domain February 18, 1934 – Audre Lorde: Born Audrey Geraldine Lorde in 1934, Audra Lorde understood the power of names and naming early in life, changing hers as a child to to highlight the symmetry of both names ending in … [Read more...]
#BlackHistoryMonth: “Negroes – Sweet and Docile, Meek, Humble, and Kind. Beware the Day They Change Their Mind.” – Langston Hughes
1936 portrait by by Carl Van Vechten, public domain Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967) was a gay man who, because of his era and his community, was deeply in the closet. He remains one of my favorite poets. Hughes was also an inspired novelist, lecturer, columnist, playwright, and … [Read more...]
#QueerQuote: “To Achieve Harmony in Bad Taste is the Height of Elegance.” –Jean Genet
Jean Genet's (1910 - 1986) work is marked by a nearly obsessive and unusually savage treatment of recurring themes: Desire, Death, and Domination. These ideas, central to Genet's artistic voice, came directly from his travels, imprisonments, sexual and emotional relationships, … [Read more...]
#WomenWeLove: Remembering Writer, Sylvia Plath on Her 90th Birthday
Photo via Lily Library Sylvia Plath (1932- 1963) : "Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you." Gay icons are frequently campy, eccentric women from showbiz. But they are far from the only ones. One of my nominations … [Read more...]
Remembering Poet, Arthur Rimbaud
Portrait by Reginald Gray, public domain Arthur Rimbaud (1854 - 1891) is familiar to me only because I had a single semester of 19th Century French Poetry, a class I took only because I had a crush on the professor. He was exactly as you would picture a teacher who specialized … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Federico García Lorca
Photo: Creative Commons, public domain June 5, 1898 - Federico García Lorca: ''To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.'' 85 years ago he was murdered by a fascist firing squad, but Federico García Lorca … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Beat Generation Poet, Allen Ginsberg
1979, photo by Hans van Dijk, Dutch National Archives, Creative Commons, public domain June 3, 1926 - Allen Ginsberg: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” The Beats, or The Beats Generation, were a literary movement started by a group of writers … [Read more...]
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