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class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn iHBnEl llout--has-top-borr set-embedd-le" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="In Bidarts poetry empathy like hope is an act of the imagatn." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">In Bidart’s poetry, empathy, like hope, is an act of the imagatn.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Illtratn by Gérard DuBois</span></div></figure></div><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">No matter how you slice , gay children wh straight parents are born to people who are not their type. Growg up a i that don’t reflect their sir, queer kids n’t help qutng their difference and what means, relatn to Mom and Dad’s more socially acceptable unn—even if that marriage happens to fail. (“Always that same old story— / Father Time and Mother Earth, / A marriage on the rocks,” Jam Merrill wrote, “The Broken Home.”) Standg both si and outsi the parental home, or their fantasi of , gay and lbian poets, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Audre Lor, Ronaldo V. Wilson, and Frank Bidart, n bee astute soclogists of the ways which people rpond to gay difference and to difference general.</p><p class="paywall">Wrers, for the most part, put to words what they see and hear the world, and what Bidart saw, heard, and absorbed as a boy growg up California durg the Send World War is one of the tal that he tells vividly, gomely, and betifully, his <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">important new llectn</a>, “Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016” (Farrar, Strs, & Giroux). Ma up of the seventy-eight-year-old thor’s eight prev volum of verse and a new sequence—the bold and elegiac “Thirst”—“Half-Light” is both the culmatn of a distguished reer and a poetic ur-text about how homophobia, doubt, and a parent’s nfg love n shape a gay child.</p><p class="paywall">From Bidart’s 2013 poem “Queer”:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p><em>Lie to yourself about this and you will</em><br/><em>forever lie about everythg</em>.</p><p>Everybody already knows everythg</p><p>so you n<br/>lie to them. That’s what they want.</p><p>But lie to yourself, what you will</p><p>lose is yourself. Then you<br/>turn to them.</p><p>For each gay kid whose adolcence</p><p>was Ameri the forti or fifti<br/>the primary, the ccial</p><p>scenar</p><p>forever is g out—<br/>or not. Or not. Or not. Or not. Or not.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">The llectn is a ght song of the self, posed of subtleti and exclamatns. It’s both funny and astute of Bidart to say that his gay adolcence the forti and fifti <em>was</em> Ameri; what teen-ager don’t feel that he or she <em>is</em> the world or at the center of ? In his poems, Bidart prents a queer self who rents beg looked at through straight ey, even as he mands that we all wns his voice, at least on the page. His style is marked by a kd of lm hysteria, or a lm that alternat wh hysteria, as he stggl wh the thgs that the straight world and his formerly closeted and ightened self thk should rema unsaid. And then he says them twice.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Bidart grew up Catholic, Bakersfield, the son of a prospero potato farmer, Frank Raymond Bidart, and his wife, Martha. Bidart’s father was, acrdg to his son, energetic and melancholy; he drank and chased women. His mother was rentful and dreamed of other liv—the on she saw movi. (Los Angel, the dream pal, was about two hours away.) Film, particularly Amerin film, was the one art that Bidart remembers havg accs to his home town. A sensive only child, om an early age he was an veterate moviegoer. (His 2008 poem “Marilyn Monroe” scrib the roots of the actrs’s ambn wh great unrstandg: “Poor, you thought beg rich is utterly / rrosive; and watched wh envy.”) And he saw his parents’ liv unfold like a film, the backdrop of which was the macho-wboy ranchg culture of Bakersfield. “It was a culture that was tolerable to me,” Bidart said, a 1996 terview wh Ashley Hatcher. “I knew very early that I wanted to get out of Bakersfield. I’m sure a lot of this had to do wh my mother, who always wanted to get out and never did. She was sthg about the domant value systems and domant ways of thkg, but never ped them.”</p><p class="paywall">One means of pe for Bidart was school. Enrollg at the Universy of California at Riversi, 1957, he thought he would be an actor or a director, before settlg to English. At Riversi, he fell unr the spell of T. S. Elt and other mornist poets. It was “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Cantos of Ezra Pound</a>” that showed Bidart what a poem uld be: unlimed spe, md-blowg s dance wh the md. “ ‘The Cantos’ are very brilliant and they’re also very tratg,” he told the poet Mark Halliday 1983. “But they were tremendoly liberatg the way that they say that anythg n be gotten to a poem . . . if you n create a stcture that is large enough or strong enough, anythg n reta s own inty and fd s place there.”</p><p class="paywall">It took Bidart years to unrstand that anythg that went through him uld be clud a poem, and, if me to , a poem uld take on any shape, even one that matched the ntours of his own difference. One of the hallmarks of his wrg is the way looks on the page and, by extensn, sounds: he paliz dividual words that unrsre what was strsed the precedg le, or he cuts a statement of fact half, lettg float to the whe space of doubt, even as other voic are troduced—voic that are separate om but separable om the thor’s “I.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In graduate school, at Harvard, Bidart attend a poetry workshop tght by Robert Lowell, <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"> whose poems</a> history, polics, and the personal nverged ep and ntrolled medatns on all that uld not be ntrolled, cludg the poet’s stggle wh manic prsn. In a recent e-mail exchange, Bidart scribed to me his associatn wh the olr wrer:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>He was, of urse, brilliant to listen to class. Fairly often I didn’t agree wh his judgment about new work, but his way of thkg about the alternativ of how a le uld be put together—the practil trici and optns of how uld be wrten—was dazzlg. I was the prence of a master, one I uld argue wh my head. One uld also argue wh him person. He ved graduate stunts back to his rooms at Qucy Hoe to see his new work. He had a lot of new work: he had begun to wre the unrhymed sons. I liked much of them and had very specific moments that I didn’t thk were que right. I knew my rponse would be els unls I was ndid. He was eager for this. He liked to quote Aun to the effect that the bt rear is someone who is crazy about your work, but don’t like all of . That f me.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Here was a father figure wh whom Bidart uld munite whout trepidatn. He told me, “Once, I asked him somethg that volved Jean Stafford”—Lowell’s first wife—“and then said, ‘Maybe that’s too personal.’ He replied, ‘We <em>are</em> personal.’ ” Lowell’s iendship, Bidart says, was “healg,” after a youth spent wh a father of whom he wrote, the extraordary tle poem of his first book, “Goln State” (1973):</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>When I was a child,<br/>you didn’t seem to re if I existed.</p><p>. . .</p><p>—you fally<br/>fave me for beg your son, and the nasty<br/>shambl of your life, which you had ls and ls<br/>ocsn for pri, you were proud<br/>of me, the first Bidart<br/>who ever got a B.A.; Harvard, spe<br/>your distst, was the crown;—but the way<br/>you eyed me:<br/>      the <em>bewilrment</em>, unease:<br/>the somehow always<br/>tentative, spend judgment . . .</p><p>—however <em>much</em> you tried (and, clearly,<br/>you <em>did</em> try)<br/>      you uld not remake your<br/>taste, and like me: uld not remake<br/>yourself, to give me</p><p>the grace<br/>need to look a mirror, as I often n<br/>now, wh some equanimy . . .</p></div></blockquote><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Bidart’s poem “Confsnal,” om “The Sacrifice” (1983), is a kd of pann piece to “Goln State,” one that addrs his relatnship wh his mother, toward whom he adms he was “predatory”—“pleased to have supplanted my father /  my mother’s affectns, and then / pleased to have supplanted my stepfather.” This pleasure had s price, though: “I was the center of her life,— / and therefore, / of her fears and obssns.” A vout Christian, the poem Bidart’s mother tells her son that is their duty “to divt ourselv / of the love of <em class="small">CREATED BEINGS</em>.” A rea of the poem is “<em class="small">THERE WAS NO PLACE IN NATURE WE COULD MEET</em>.” The eternal qutn for the gay boy: where to fd natural mon ground wh his straight mother, whose body he do not sire but may intify wh? Do this amount to rejectn or a powerful form of acceptance?</p><p class="paywall">Through Lowell, Bidart met Elizabeth Bishop, wh whom he did fd a more natural meetg ground. <a href=">Lowell and Bishop beme m</a> of a sort for Bidart. He told me that he didn’t expect the olr poets to unrstand his prosody, “how I ma l and the relatn between my l and space on the page and mon speech.” And he knew that “imatg them would have been ath for me as a wrer.” Lowell and Bishop were ls teachers than parents of his own choosg, who enuraged him to bee the artist he uldn’t be back home. “I knew that knowg them—and the fact that, some sense, they had need me, an eager kid om Bakersfield obssed wh poetry and art, their life—was the most unlikely gift,” he told me. “How on earth had happened?” He add, “I had such nflicted relatnships wh my real parents. Then I had been given, miraculoly, the chance to be the ‘good son’ rather than the ‘bad son.’ ”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Still, every fay n be alienatg, spe, or sometim bee of, the love s members feel for one another. “I adored them, and they knew ,” Bidart wrote. “There were moments of great pa—but knowg them, and beg eful to them, was the greatt privilege of my life. Now ’s over, and not over.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Bidart published “Goln State” after his father had died, 1967, but several years before Lowell’s ath, 1977, and Bishop’s, 1979. (The poets provid the only two blurbs on the origal dt jacket.) In the tle poem, Bidart wr about his father’s ath:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>To see my father<br/>lyg pk velvet, a rosary<br/>twed around his hands, rouged,<br/>lipsticked, his sk marble. . . .</p><p>Ruth, your last girliend, who wouldn’t sleep wh you<br/>or marry, bee you wanted her<br/>to pay half the expens, and “His drkg<br/>almost drove me crazy—”<br/>          Ruth once saw you<br/>starg to a mirror,<br/> your ubiquo kerchief and wboy hat,<br/>say:<br/>  “Why n’t I look like a wboy?”</p><p>You left a bag of money; and were<br/>the unhappit man<br/>I have ever known well.</p><p>. . .</p><p>It’s many ways<br/>a relief to have you ad.<br/>          I have more money.</p></div></blockquote></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="jqjthe"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="vpecsy"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The poem asks a number of qutns: Has ath ma Bidart’s father a woman, rouged and lipsticked? His wboy drag—did he wear for himself or to nvce the women his life of his masculy, and th of their own femy? Now that the father is ad, his son has money—and th mascule power, at least those women’s ey.</p><p class="paywall">Bidart’s send llectn, “The Book of the Body” (1977), is domated by women trouble: Bidart’s mother and a breakdown she had; Ellen Wt, a turn-of-the-century anorexic psychiatric patient; the “feme” si of Bidart, which is also breakg down, breakg apart. The book is wild both imagery and language, full of fury and crly; readg s scriptns of love and bodi is like tryg to see flowers through bullet-riddled glass—the bety on the other si of damage. In a way, “The Book of the Body” is tougher than “Goln State,” more thls and eer s exploratn of what nstut the tth tobgraphy—or “nfsnal” poetry—and s unrstandg of the ti that bd to prev generatns, although all those bodi and histori are the last thg we want to be tethered to as we stggle to liberate ourselv, even, sometim, om ourselv. When Bidart reads, he sometim giv the imprsn that he wants his body to meld wh the poem, which seems to liberate him, too. In a wonrful say about him, April Bernard rells attendg a readg when she was a stunt at Harvard, the seventi:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I am not sure now whether I was able to appreciate the poetry as such; what I did appreciate—and was bewched and alarmed by almost equal measure—was Bidart’s astonishg performance. Wh plete ncentratn on the words he was sayg . . . he paced and swooped and wrhed as he read, somewhat nasally, and wh aggrsively flattened Amerin vowels. . . . When the next day I read his poems . . . I saw those “dynamics” for readg ma explic the typography on the pag, and was able to hear his voice aga my ear.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">“The Book of the Body” n be viewed as a script for that kd of bewchg and alarmg performance. In , Bidart views his mother’s llapse through the prism of his own transformatns. He wr, “The Arc”:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>When I wake up,<br/>         I try to nvce myself that my arm<br/>isn’t there—<br/>      to reta my sany.</p><p>Then I try to nvce myself is.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Later:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I ed to vaguely perceive the necsy<br/>of g to terms wh the stump-filled, material world,—</p><p>thgs, bodi;<br/>       CRAP—</p><p>a world of accint, and chance—;</p><p>but after<br/>the accint, I had to unrstand </p><p><em>not</em> as an accint—;</p><p>          the way my mother,<br/>years before locked McLean’s,</p><p>believed the patg of a snow-scene above her bed<br/>had been placed there by the doctor to make her feel ld.</p><p>How uld we <em>nvce</em> her had no pot? . . .</p><p>It had no pot,—</p><p>          was there<br/>whout relatn to my mother. . . .</p></div></blockquote><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Art always has a pot, of urse: to make the imaged world real to the viewer, to change the md and remake the body. But how to remake the body as li dyg? <em class="small">AIDS</em> is one of Bidart’s great subjects. He me to matury durg the <em class="small">AIDS</em> crisis, and his poem sequence “The First Hour of the Night” was published, his fourth llectn, “In the Wtern Night: Collected Poems 1965-1990,” ne years after the disease was first reported. Like Thom Gunn’s <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">important llectn</a> “The Man wh Night Sweats,” which me out two years later, “The First Hour of the Night” helped fd a language for the unspeakable. Where Gunn’s voice was measured and mature, Bidart entered eply to the science fictn that was <em class="small">AIDS</em>—the eers of s effects on the livg, all those gay men who wanted to be close to someone, but how?</p><p class="paywall">In “By The Waters,” he wr about tricks who are martyred by their johns’ sire:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>What begs regnn,—<br/>. . . ends obedience.</p><p>The boys who lie back, or stand up,<br/>allowg their fli to be unzipped</p><p><em>however much they charge</em><br/><em>however much they charge</em></p><p>give more than they get.</p><p>When the room went dark, the screen l up.</p><p>By the waters on my kne I have wept.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">In this world, empathy, like hope, is an act of the imagatn. What feels real—or ncrete—is the effabily of ntradictory emotns.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">“<em>I hate and—love.</em> The sleepls body hammerg a nail nails self, hangg ccified”: the two l that make up “Catull: Exccr,” “Dire” (1997), are the work of a man who is tryg to purge himself of Catholicism, of his own physil existence, of the shame of havg survived <em class="small">AIDS</em>, if only barely. The emotnal srs of survival are goug Bidart’s sk, leavg him wh the qutn: Why didn’t he die, too? “For the <em class="small">AIDS</em> Dead” (2013), s entirety:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>The plague you have th far survived. They didn’t.<br/>Nothg that they did bed that you didn’t.</p><p>Wrg a poem, I cleave to “you.” You<br/>means I, one, you, as well as the you</p><p>si you nstantly talk to. Whout<br/>jtice or logic, whout</p><p>sense, you survived. They didn’t.<br/>Nothg that they did bed that you didn’t.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">In an e-mail, Bidart told me that “In the Wtern Night” had “exhsted somethg basic about the way I ma poems: the extremely heavy punctuatn; the way the thsts and urgenci of the voice termed almost everythg.” He ntued:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I had fallen love wh [the wrer and artist] Joe Braard. I wanted to make a poem for him that was quieter, that grew out of a mic and movement that were more timate. I lerally typed “A Co for Joe” for hours almost every day for months, on and off for two years. I had to fd a way to put down on the page that was different om any way I had found before. Somehow this arduo procs my prosody changed. . . . As the years passed I felt that some of my old poems were, spots, too “<em>à hte voix</em>,” too claimed to the balny.</p></div></blockquote></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="nrwcqc"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bidart’s love for the younger Braard, who died of <em class="small">AIDS</em>-duced pnmonia 1994, at fifty-three, was not reciproted—at least, not the tradnal way. But Braard and Braard’s ghost beme part of Bidart’s fay. Stayg loyal to that love, or to that ghost of love, not only helped to make a poem; helped to make the poet. From the 1997 poem “In Memory of Joe Braard”:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>In the end, the plague that full swift ns by<br/>took you, broke you;—</p><p>        <em> the end, uld not</em><br/>        <em>take you, did not break you—</em></p><p>you had somehow erased wh you not only<br/>meanns, but anger, the sire to punish<br/>the universe for everythg</p><p><em>not</em> achieved, <em>not</em> tasted, seen aga, touched—;</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">The only love worth savg ends where began, and always begs— the imagatn. But te emotn mands a dialogue, and, like Jam Merrill’s <a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">extraordary work</a> “The Changg Light at Sandover,” Bidart’s poems are a kd of séance, one which he tri to voke and munite love, even if that love n no longer be achieved, tasted, seen, touched. The poems that Bidart wrote for his lost on are a ttament to the nversatns he holds his head, wrten wh force om the nf of a limls gay body. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="8yuw6"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2017/09/11" data-reactroot="">September 11, 2017</a>, issue, wh the headle “Goln Boy.”</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/hilton-als"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/hilton-als">Hilton Als</a>, a staff wrer at The New Yorker, won the 2017 Pulzer Prize for cricism. He published “<a href=">My Pup</a>,” November, 2022.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/ank-bidart" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Frank Bidart</span></a><a href="/tag/half-light-llected-poems-1965-2016" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">“Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016”</span></a><a href="/tag/poets" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Poets</span></a><a href="/tag/poetry" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Poetry</span></a><a href="/tag/books" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Books</span></a></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="ContentFooterBottom" class="ContentFooterBottom-jwWZfC kcbyiW"><div class="ContentFooterNewsletterContentWrapper-bmjtna kixtae"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper-fCqqkN jKSBhE newsletter-subscribe-form ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper-fpMElW eglIBL"><h3 class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDangeroHed-kRwWjt feDzQf newsletter-subscribe-form__hed ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf">Books & Fictn</h3><div class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDek-kXonvc grEaES newsletter-subscribe-form__k">Short stori and poems, pl thor terviews, profil, and tal om the world of lerature.</div></div><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormInputsWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormInputsWrapper-keARJE hVWbzr"><form class="form-wh-validatn NewsletterSubscribeFormValidatn-iCYa-Dt dweEln" id="newsletter" name="newsletter" novalidate="" method="POST"><span class="TextFieldWrapper-Pzdqp hNhevp text-field" data-ttid="TextFieldWrapper__email"><label class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TextFieldLabel-klrYvg iUEiRd stdEm fvoOvz text-field__label text-field__label--sgle-le" for="newsletter-text-field-email" data-ttid="TextFieldLabel__email"><div class="TextFieldLabelText-cvvxBl eeDYTb">E-mail addrs</div><div class="TextFieldInputContaer-jcMPhb oFrOs"><put type="email" aria-scribedby="privacy-text" aria-valid="false" id="newsletter-text-field-email" required="" name="email" placeholr="E-mail addrs" class="BaseInput-fAzTdK TextFieldControlInput-eFUxkf eGzzTT lglhcT text-field__ntrol text-field__ntrol--put" data-ttid="TextFieldInput__email"/></div></label><button class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv dwpimO button button--utily TextFieldButton-csBrgY edxbrw" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="subm"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN hzwRuG button__label">Sign up</span></button></span><div id="privacy-text" tabx="-1" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDisclaimer-bTVtiV bsgLJZ"><span><p>By signg up, you agree to our <a href=" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">User Agreement</a> and <a href=" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement</a>. 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href="/magaze/2015/04/13/out-of-this-world-books-dan-chiasson" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Out of This World" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2015/04/13/out-of-this-world-books-dan-chiasson" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Out of This World</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Jam Merrill’s supernatural me.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Dan Chiasson</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2017/03/20/the-illns-and-sight-of-robert-lowell" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Illns and Insight of Robert Lowell" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2017/03/20/the-illns-and-sight-of-robert-lowell" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Illns and Insight of Robert Lowell</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">A new book is the first to brg clil expertise to the poet’s se. What do reveal about his work?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Dan Chiasson</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Cale Bordas on Aliens, Narrative, and Art" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">This Week Fictn</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Cale Bordas on Aliens, Narrative, and Art</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">The thor discs “Colorín Colorado,” her story om the latt issue of the magaze.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Willg Davidson</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a 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collection of poems gay

Poems & More for LGBTQ Pri Month - June is Pri Month, an annual celebratn memoratg the 1969 Stonewall Rts, which took place New York Cy and lnched the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer rights movement the Uned Stat. Pri Month is also a time to honor the many ntributns of LGBTQ dividuals. Explore the rich tradn of LGBTQ poets and poetry through a showse of d, vio, poetry, and prose.

Contents:

LGBTQIA: GAY FICTN & LERATURE

A llectn of poems about the gay body, childhood and adulthood. * collection of poems gay *

Explore the rich tradn of gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr, and queer poets and poetry by browsg a selectn of poems & d. The Black gay wrer actually began wrg the book nearly 30 years ago when he started his lastg role as a volunteer and activist for HIV/AIDS .

GAY POEMS FOR RED STAT

Catalog of Unabashed Gratu is a poetry llectn by Indiana poet Ross Gay that celebrat life and goodns and that which nourish , fleetgly and forever, through love and loss, om everyday livg and garng and noticg what we often take for granted. * collection of poems gay *

Whether she's lashg out at gun vlence, homophobia, or whe supremacy, the wner of the first Women of the World Poetry Slam 2008 go right for the jugular wh her powerful and unapologetic style. Cavafy is a 20th century Greek poet, known for his highly homoerotic and sexually explic poetry.

While he remaed mostly obscure durg his lifetime, he's now e to be revered as one of the great gay poets of the past hundred years. Ifti Nasim was a gay Pakistani-Amerin poet who moved to the Stat to pe persecutn for his sexualy back his hometown. Baldw is known as one of the great, proud gay artists of all time.

Walt Whman is one of the great poets of all time, and a champn of homoeroticism the lerary form.

GAY

Gay Poems - Gay Famo Poems om * collection of poems gay *

Readg “Conqut” (We’d sworn / never to do harm; then sworn stead to keep tryg hard / not to— A kd / of progrs…), “Porcela” (…y, was / mostly like that, sex as both an act of facement and— / as if the two were the same thg—votive offerg…), “Directns om Here” (You / as Oblivn ridg bareback on Notoriety, my / favore horse), and all the rt—terpted by moments of the poet’s pla, mortal doubt about the articulatn of likens or is-ns—gave me the permissn (and the urage and the mandate) to face the life I thk I know and fd s new nam buddg there and SaxSam Sax's bury begs wh poems wrten rponse to the spate of highly publicized young gay suicis the summer of 2010, and featur medatns on ath, ruals of passage, translatn, sire, diaspora, and personhood.

Illtratn by Gérard DuBoisNo matter how you slice , gay children wh straight parents are born to people who are not their type. ”) Standg both si and outsi the parental home, or their fantasi of , gay and lbian poets, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Audre Lor, Ronaldo V.

GAY WRG INDIA - A FIRST COLLECTN OF QUEER POEMS BY SHALEEN RAKH

Books shelved as gay-poetry: Csh by Richard Siken, Physil by Andrew McMillan, Prelu to Bise by Saeed Jon, bury by Sam Sax, and Slow Lightn... * collection of poems gay *

Wilson, and Frank Bidart, n bee astute soclogists of the ways which people rpond to gay difference and to difference general. Ma up of the seventy-eight-year-old thor’s eight prev volum of verse and a new sequence—the bold and elegiac “Thirst”—“Half-Light” is both the culmatn of a distguished reer and a poetic ur-text about how homophobia, doubt, and a parent’s nfg love n shape a gay Bidart’s 2013 poem “Queer”:Lie to yourself about this and you willforever lie about everythg. Then youturn to each gay kid whose adolcencewas Ameri the forti or fiftithe primary, the ccialscenarforever is g out—or not.

It’s both funny and astute of Bidart to say that his gay adolcence the forti and fifti was Ameri; what teen-ager don’t feel that he or she is the world or at the center of ?

GAY POETRY BOOKS

Love poetry to read at a lbian or gay weddg. * collection of poems gay *

” The eternal qutn for the gay boy: where to fd natural mon ground wh his straight mother, whose body he do not sire but may intify wh?

GAY AND LBIAN WEDDG POEMS

* collection of poems gay *

Gay, non-bary, and Glaswegian poet Peter Slpello has put together a llectn of raw, punk, open-hearted queer poems. The awkward and rigid bari of heterosexual relatnships are examed through a peo lens, and the secrets of ightened, closeted gay married men are exposed.

When first performed this play was ntroversial many different muni, both straight and gay. Jed, middle-class, black and gay 1980s' Chigo, hop to fd eedom and acceptance Berl, as did William Bradshaw Christopher Isherwood's Berl Stori. Circulatg queerns: before the gay and lbian novel.

A new examatn of the history of the gay and lbian novel as a distct genre Amerin lerature. In his day he was a somewhat closeted gay man, who lived openly wh his gay lover.

GAY POEMS

Dear Abby, I'm gay: newspaper advice lumnists and homosexualy Ameri. A llectn of fictn and non-fictn om North Carola's bt wrers who intify as gay, trans, bisexual and straight. David is a young Amerin livg 1950s Paris, retreatg om his fiancée and disverg homosexual love wh Italian bartenr Gvanni.

In this multiple award-wng g-of-age memoir ( Kirk, 2019; Stonewall Book Award, 2020; New York Tim 100 Notable Books, 2019), Saeed Jon wr about growg up the South, as a young, black, gay man. Origally om Moroc, Abllah Taïa liv France and is among a small group of openly gay Arabic wrers. Candid and humoro about his life's journey the navy Vietnam to San Francis the 1970s, to beg a wrer and gay rights pneer.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* COLLECTION OF POEMS GAY

Gay Poetry Books .

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