MY OWN SYNTAX

What might make a poem “gay”?

Yr. Thoughts?

http://bit.ly/90WpMr

with this review of the winner of the 2010 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry — http://bit.ly/90WpMr

Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?
Before a face suddenly numinous,
her eyes watered, knees melted. Did she lactate   
again, milk brought down by a girl’s kiss?   
It’s documented torrents are unloosed
by such events as recently produced
not the wish, but the need, to consume, in us,   
one pint of Maalox, one of Kaopectate.
My eyes and groin are permanently swollen,   
I’m alternatingly brilliant and witless
—and sleepless: bed is just a swamp to roll in.   
Although I’d cream my jeans touching your breast,   
sweetheart, it isn’t lust; it’s all the rest
of what I want with you that scares me shitless.

so-treu:

HAVENT HEARD FROM YOU IN AGES STOP LOVE YOUR
LATEST SHOW STOP THIS NO PHONE STUFF IS FOR BIRDS
LIKE YOU STOP ONCE SHOUTED UP FROM STREET ONLY

RAIN AND YOUR ASSISTANT ANSWERED STOP DO YOU
STILL SLEEP LATE STOP DOES YOUR PAINT STILL COVER
DOORS STOP FOUND A SAMO TAG COPYRIGHT HIGH

ABOVE A STAIR STOP NOT SURE HOW YOU REACHED STOP
YOU ALWAYS WERE A CLIMBER STOP COME DOWN SOME
DAY AND SEE US AGAIN END

- Kevin Young

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes 
and clots like you 
wouldn't believe. let the 
flashes come when they 
meet someone special. 
let the clots come 
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted 
arrogance in the universe, 
then bring them to gynecologists 
not unlike themselves.

(June 27, 1936 - February 13, 2010)

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

—

I will go cry alone now.

TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy of men!
Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough
Within thy hearing, or thy head be now
Pillowed in some deep dungeon’s earless den; -
O miserable Chieftain! where and when
Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
There’s not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

(1803)

YES, I HAVE seen Avatar. Yes, like the rest of the known world, it would seem, I have many comments on it. Most have been said. Most I won’t repeat. Only thing that’s been jumping my mind is this: It is amazing to me that we could even have a movie like Avatar; that one could imagine the technology necessary, then develop that technology to create it; that one (namely, James Cameron) can imagine this fantastic, new world filled, itself, with new (neuro) technology; and with new creatures; and with new languages; everything made new—and yet. We can still only imagine sex & gender in the same, old comfortable binary. And yet. We can still only imagine, it would seem, the same, old comfortable heteronormativity & heterosexual subplot. And yet. The white hero, like always, wears our clothes & saves the day.

Save yourself the ten dollar movie ticket. Read a poem.