Gay Poems - Morn Award-wng Gay Poetry : All Poetry

Contents:

• POETRY THAT IS GAY
• IS POETRY GAY?
• POEMS / GAY POEMS - THE BT POETRY ON THE WEBNEWTSOBSHAGS   FOLLOWON AUG 25 2023 08:30 AM PST  THE GLOSSY STUGGLE OF A ONCE YOUNG GAY MAN

POETRY THAT IS GAY

Explore the rich tradn of gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr, and queer poets and poetry by browsg a selectn of poems & d. But for the award-wng gay poet Doty, textual analysis of the great Amerin bard required a personal analysis, which necsated this kd of spirual ntact. "Labels like gay, queer, or bisexual were nonexistent Whman's era.

Or, to -opt one of the more unfortunate terms of our time, I’d like to ask another, overly provotive qutn: Is poetry gay?

He is a gay poet (or a poet who happens to be gay), and though I hate to place labels on any wrer, the poems his first book, The Anchorage, do not shy om this personal tth.

IS POETRY GAY?

The many dark piec are hnted by mortaly and vlence, and they trace a young gay man’s journey to a new life, far om his boyhood home Wisns, near that “highway that cuts the Midwt to two unequal/ halv. Of urse, a man n be both “manly” and gay my humble opn, but I spect there are still plac Ameri (and many other parts of the world) where this is simply not the se: a gay man is marked as effemate, no matter his genr performance, and that’s the end of the story.

As a gay poet who grew up the ral Midwt and went to school Wisns, I have been eply affected by Wunrlich’s work, toxited wh his utter honty speakg about love, sex and attachment. ” Though I’m taken wh Wunrlich, somethg jt unr the surface also troubl me a ltle, and I thk has to do wh how he and other gay poets tap to a mon language and visual vobulary to wre what we might ll The Gay Poem.

“The miature tea set” and “crystal” and mentn of “opera” brg to md the stereotype of the ede gay man, obssed wh style, image and entertag. And bee the poems The Anchorage do take risks wh more openly homosexual subject matter, let me also ask a rather pdish qutn: If any poet ventur to wre explicly about her or his sex life and the trappgs thereof—whether those clu whips and harns or phall—do she/he risk losg more than a few rears who’d prefer not to go there?

POEMS / GAY POEMS - THE BT POETRY ON THE WEBNEWTSOBSHAGS   FOLLOWON AUG 25 2023 08:30 AM PST  THE GLOSSY STUGGLE OF A ONCE YOUNG GAY MAN

Do gay poets, who so often (rightfully, I would argue) wre about their sexual liv, the pleasur and muti of the body—do we risk turng off straight rears? I’ve been love wh Phillips’ philosophil mgs and lh language for years, taken wh his fluid l that have often (tellgly) been lled “athletic” and “mcular, ” and which ankly explore the emotnal and sexual liv of gay men. “He’s so gay, ” my iend said.

So, though I wouldn’t have lled the poem tl “gay” per se, he has a pot. ” I n bristle all I want, but the ia of transience aris the work of so many gay poets (and so many poets general).

If you grow up gay the Midwt, or other small towns, pecially, don’t take long to register that what you’re lookg for this life do not jibe wh what the culture says you ought to want. I’m beg hyperbolic, but poetry n help legimize the outsir’s life to the wir world and brg wh at least some measure of acceptance, so the poet n stand apart and—gay or straight—look on life like a voyr, takg fastid not. The qutn is not whether poetry is particularly gay or not; is, as always, why we choose to fill our time wh the thgs we do, how often we have no choice the matter of what lls to .