#queer american poetry

[frompoemsthativeread]

Amen Amen Amen. I call out God's good name in the midst of the first miracle--the black body. Look at him, at us. Were the mountains not named after some dark brotha's shoulderes? Didn't the wind learn its ways from watching two boys run the spine of a field? Bless the birch-colored body, always threatening to grow or burn. Bless the body that strikes fear in pale police. & wets the mouths of church girls & choir boys with want. Am I allowed to say I praised my pastor most without the robe?

-- Danez Smith, On Grace. From Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color (2018).

[newvision]

— Richard Siken, from ‘Birds Hover the Trampled Field’ in War of the Foxes

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Read Palestine Week

🇵🇸 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. Can I start by saying a huge THANK YOU for sharing my Queer Palestinian Book post? Seriously, thank you so much. Let's keep that momentum by observing Read Palestine Week (Nov 29 - Dec 5). I've compiled a list of books to help you, along with a list of upcoming events and resources you can use this week and beyond.

🇵🇸 A collective of over 350 global publishers and individuals issued a public statement expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Publishers for Palestine have organized an international #ReadPalestine week, starting today (International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People).

🇵🇸 These publishers have made many resources and e-books available for free (with more to come). A few include award-winning fiction and poetry by Palestinian and Palestinian diaspora authors. You'll also find non-fiction books about Palestinian history, politics, arts, culture, and “books about organizing, resistance, and solidarity for a Free Palestine.” You can visit publishersforpalestine.org to download some of the books they have available.

POETRY 🌙 Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha 🌙 Affiliation by Mira Mattar 🌙 Enemy of the Sun by Samih al-Qasim 🌙 I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti 🌙 A Mountainous Journey by Fadwa Tuqan 🌙 So What by Taha Muhammad Ali 🌙 The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 To All the Yellow Flowers by Raya Tuffaha

FICTION 🌙 Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury 🌙 Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales 🌙 Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani 🌙 Morning in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Gaze Writes Back by Young Writers in Gaze 🌙 Palestine +100:Stories from a Century after the Nakba 🌙 Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Out of Time by Samira Azzam

🌙 The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour

NON-FICTION 🌙 Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour 🌙 Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Palestinian Art, 1850–2005 by Kamal Boullata 🌙 Palestine by Joe Sacco 🌙 The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami Al Jundi & Jen Marlowe 🌙 Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha 🌙 Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat 🌙 The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine by Yousef Khalil Bashir

🌙 Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution by Hanan Karaman Munayyer 🌙 Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture by Salim Tamari 🌙 This Is Not a Border: Reportage and Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature 🌙 We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem, by Issa J. Boullata 🌙 A Party For Thaera: Palestinian Women Write Life In Prison 🌙 Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, 🌙 Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine

[many-sparrows]

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, 2003

[chickenstrangers]

ONLY FRIENDS | EPISODE 4

YOUR EMERGENCY CONTACT HAS EXPERIENCED AN EMERGENCY by CHEN CHEN (2022)

[uwmspeccoll]

It's Feral Friday!

If Special Collections were compared to a National Park- a thoughtfully curated, accessible experience of the wilderness of the natural world- where would its edges lie? What would be considered off the beaten path, how would its boundaries be defined, and in what ways would the landscape beyond those boundaries inspire our imagination and broaden our conceptions of the world and our communicative capacities?

That’s the realm of pluralistic inquiry explored by Feral Fridays, a new weekly post where we’ll feature items from our collection like zines, experimental book arts, independently produced poetry and other unruly materials that exist at the margins of publishing and literary traditions.

Let’s get Feral!   

--Ana, Special Collections Graduate Intern

Images:

That Way Issue 1, Spring 2021

That Way Issue 1, Spring 2021, pp. 23-24 (excerpt from interview w/Erma Fiend)

Thing Issue no. 3, Summer 1990

Re: Creation by Nikki Giovanni, Broadside Press, 1970

Aquarius Rising by Ben Fama, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010

excerpt from Ugly Duckling Issue 6, October 2003

Lynch by Inch: an interview to Ali Khalid Abdullah 2003

Blue Horses for Navajo Women by Nia Francisco, Greenfield Review Press, 1988

Mildred Pierce Issue 3, April 2009

The Match! Number 97, Winter 2001-2002

[starlight-nocte]

i don’t want to tell this story–

a 16-year-old kid, the shit kicked out of them

in a school bathroom,

no medical attention, no police called on their 

three attackers, 

the ones who slammed their head into 

a dirty linoleum floor over and over again 

until their brain started bleeding. 

i don’t want to tell this story–

an indigenous teenager 

dying in a hospital bed a day after being 

victimized 

& when i tell my white, cishet mother 

about it– because this is one of the ones 

that gets me–

she doesn’t even blink. it’s almost normal now. 

Nex, I Am Sorry. 

i am sorry this happened to you.

& i am sorry no one cared enough 

to stop them before it was 

too late

for you. they hold vigils for you 

around the country– including at Stonewall, 

but it isn’t enough, is it? it’s never

enough. 

-- Elegy for Nex Benedict

[byronicist]

"I came into this world already scarred by loss on both sides of my family. My Indigenous side; my European side. My father and my mother were the kind of damaged people who should never have had children. But of course, they had me, and so my first language was loss."

Deborah Miranda, When Coyote Knocks on the Door (2021)

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

I noticed Taylor does have grammatical errors a lot, and one learned scholar at a major university agreed with the person who brought something that it had an error. In fact you don’t have to be a learned scholar to know. A high school or even a secondary teacher could say the same. Another time someone took the poem from the rep magazine and a poetry professor didn’t act too impressed. He just said it read like she was going to sing it.

The poetry books from all these popstars are just god-awful.

Taylor Swift has a terrible attempt at real poetry, beside this latest album. Halsey. Florence Welch. Lili Reinhart. Meagan Fox. Lana Del Rey.

(ETC). None of them understand grammar, and none of them have good poetry. It's almost like people need to first understand the language before they can play around with it. I used to have a job in a library and would visibly cringe putting these pitiful attempts at poetry back on the shelves.

I wish people would read more poetry and study English before writing poems :(

Anyway, here's a list of good contemporary poets, to even out the cringe: Mary Oliver (<- love of my life), Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton (<- A fucking Genius), Rita Dove, Louise Gluck, Frank O'Hara, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Anna Carson, Marianne Moore

This list leans heavily American and Queer, but, hey, I like what I like. :)

[his-heart-hymns]

You might have heard all the buzz about Lloyd Austin being chosen as the first Black Secretary of Defense by President Biden. So today, I stumbled upon something interesting. Turns out, Austin sits on the board of Raytheon Technologies, one of the biggest players in the defense industry, getting millions from stocks and compensations. I wasn't shocked a bit. It's just how things have been working in American politics for decades. The American government starts unnecessary wars, showering defense companies like Raytheon and Boeing with billions in contracts. And in return politicians, generals and bureaucrats get fat payouts. The elected "ruling class" enjoys lavish lifestyles while millions of civilians throughout the world are slaughtered and starved to death. Too much freedom and democracy.🤡

[manwalksintobar]

from Women Are Tired of the Ways Men Bleed  // Judy Grahn

ONE

          “I know it’s irrational,” he said           “but after the Loma Prieta earthquake           I sat up in bed with my pistol           loaded and cocked.”

imagine a war of “shoot the sea— prevent tsunamis”

imagine if war were seen as dysfunctional behavior like child abuse or the many problems in families, and say, if we wouldn’t shoot our mothers and fathers even when they terrify or mortally wound us why would we drop bombs upon the possibly not even dysfunctional strangers?

imagine if war were seen as just as vengeful as any vengeful practices, like, say, after the hurricane we lock up everything that flies for having brought the bad wind. or we blow up the houses of those related to those supportive of those who live with the drivers who cause automotive accidents

imagine it’s ok to know humanity as we might know our dopey, dangerous, loveable amazingly adaptable and talented family even those whose love we continue seeking even those we have tortured or neglected even those who have hurt us, who oppose us even those mysterious as water

imagine it’s ok to know the earth exactly as a person. imagine Armageddon already happened now we’re into reconstruction. imagine a god named it’s ok.

[theoffingmag]

Theo LeGro, "The first time I pried a blade from your fist I told myself never again"

[newvision]

— Danez Smith, don’t call us dead

[unwashedace]

Quote from Anne Sexton’s poem “For my lover, returning to his wife.”

Illustration by Deirdre Sokolowska

[proserpnias]

This afternoon was the colour of water falling through the sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves; And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.

“September, 1918,” Amy Lowell

[geminicorrects]

"i don't hate you

i'm just not secure in my moods

and i don't want to take action

to solidify this connection"

do you hear it?

somehow it goes over your head

but it's loud and clear to me

sentenced to radio silence

because nothing

about me

made you

want to be the best you can be

it hurts because i

didn't even intend

to let my guard down

born to be sapphic

live happily

and be gay

forced to battle insecurity

overbearingly monitoring emotions

to make sure im safe

IMMA MAKE SURE Y'ALL HEARD JT SAY

i should've never did it, well ion think that... ion know what i think...

we both know

it's not okay

i'm sorry for everything

i don't hate you

i really just wanted you to be

one to stay

- eb