Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 40

Reginald Harris’s Autogeography

This week in my Introduction to LGBT Studies: LGBT Art and Culture, we discussed Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied and Joseph Beam’s In the Life. One of my arguments about these two works is that they argue forcefully to take the focus of gay men’s lives off of AIDS (both were published in the mid to late 1980s) and reclaim the decade of the eighties for black gay men. As much as they do not speak of AIDS in the work, reading them in 2013, I am consumed by memories of AIDS and of what was lost. What would Joe Beam have written next, had he lived? Essex Hemphill? Riggs? We can only idly speculate. Reading the updated contributors biographies in the fantastic reissue from RedBone Press, the palimpsest of AIDS is more visible. Half of the contributors are dead, most from complications of AIDS. So there is a particular sadness, almost a dirge that accompanied this week.

Then, I sat down to read Reginald Harris’s new book, Autogeography. The book won the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry prize. Reggie hears the same soundtrack in his life that I hear. The dirge of the past week, playing silently in my mind, came into focus on these pages. In fact, Harris invokes my people in “Reunion:”

Essex and joe Beam line dance with

Audre and Pat Parker while Assotto Saint,

Melvin Dixon, and my partner critique

from the picnic table off to one side.

I was so happy to see them here in this poem, dancing in my mind.

There are many elements of delight in Harris’s book. The poems, yes. The discovery of the extraordinary formal influences in Harris’s work. His pantoum is not to be missed. The sonnets sing. There is something exciting and energizing happening on every single page of this collection. Autogeography is designed slightly larger than a usual trade paperback book of poetry and about half way through I discovered why. Harris’s lines press against the edges of the page, even in this larger size. As though the poems will not be contained. As though the book is bursting at its seems. As though there is something noisy from the past piercing our consciousness. As though there is a marching band from the future dropping by to play the songs we will come to know and love. I miss Essex and Reginald Shepherd and Donald Woods and many others, but here is Reggie with this phenomenal book to whisper, all is not lost, m’dear, all is not lost.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Black gay poetry, poetry, queer poetry, Reginald Harris

Lesbian Poetry Archive Publishes New, Electronic Edition of it’s like this by doris davenport

doris davenport published her first chapbook, it’s like this in 1981 while living in Los Angeles. it’s like this reflects the passion and excitement of the women’s liberation movement and contains many early expressions of crucial themes to davenport as a writer and artist.

Although davenport’s work has not received much event critical attention, davenport is a peer to LA-poet laureate Eloise Klein Healy. davenport’s work is in the tradition of poets like Wanda Coleman, Pat Parker and Audre Lorde. Her work is part of the vibrant traditions of lesbian-feminist poetry and the ‘Affrillachian’ poetic tradition.

In a new foreword, davenport writes, “Although i was always a performance poet-writer, the poems grew primarily from the contexts of the worlds i inhabited in 1976-1985 in Los Angeles, from our attempts to recreate *the* world or at least create an alternative world of sacred, safe wimmin’s space. We lived in alternatives conjured daily from dreams, committed actions, and mutual support. While grounded in my L.A. wimmin’s community, i relied on the national and international phenomena of wimmin’s writing for constant inspiration.”

In an afterword to it’s like this, Lesbian Poetry Archive curator Julie R. Enszer writes, “doris davenport is a poet of extraordinary passion and humor. Digitizing her first chapbook, it’s like this (1981), is an invitation for new readers to explore davenport’s oeuvre. In the more than thirty years since her debut, she consistently has produced poetry that delights and enlightens, poetry that entertains and challenges.”

Readers can download and share it’s like this at the Lesbian Poetry Archive, www.LesbianPoetryArchive.org. Click on ebooks at www.LesbianPoetryArchive.org or direct your browser to http://www.lesbianpoetryarchive.org/itslikethis

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doris davenport is a writer, educator, and literary & performance poet who grew up in the Appalachian foothills of Habersham County (Cornelia) Georgia. She has earned degrees from Paine College (BA English), State University of Buffalo (SUNY), New York (MA English) and the University of Southern California (PhD Literature). She is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, ascent (2011). davenport is available for lectures, workshops, readings, performances, and collaborations: zorahpoet7@gmail.com.

The ebook series at the Lesbian Poetry Archive publishes electronic edition of out of print books and chapbooks by lesbian authors. All ebooks are .pdf files and available for download. They are also rendered at the Lesbian Poetry Archive.

The Lesbian Poetry Archive is a digital archive of lesbian print culture. With extensive bibliographies, selections from germinal lesbian poetry texts, and other lesbian print ephemera, the Lesbian Poetry Archives is a resource for scholars, poets, and general readers.

Julie R. Enszer is the curator of the Lesbian Poetry Archive.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: doris davenport, ebooks, lesbian, Lesbian Poetry Archive, poetry

Recently Arrived in the Mail

So much good stuff has arrived in my mailbox lately, I do not know where to begin – and I worry that I will not get to it all. Here are a few highlights that I am looking forward to spending time with in the next few weeks:

Reginald Harris’s award-winning book, Autogeography. Harris is a phenomenal poet and I am so excited about this book which won a prize from Cave Canem.

Mixed Race, the newest issue of AALR, the Asian-American Literary Review. For those of you who have print and publishing fetishes, this is a boxed issue of materials that is so elegant, so imaginative, and so innovative that you will want to sleep with it for a few nights while reading it.

Shira Glassman’s new novel, The Second Mango. This book looks so fun! Here is a squib from the back cover: Queen Shulamit never expected to inherit the throne of the tropical land of Perach so young. At twenty, grief-stricken and fatherless, she’s also coping with being the only lesbian she knows after her sweetheart ran off for an unknown reason.”

I’ve also been filling out my collection of Sinister Wisdom. I am only missing copies of Sinister Wisdom 4, 6, 14, 27, and 28 before my collection is complete. Have a copy of those issues? Want to send it to me? The address is here. . . .

More coming on other projects that I have been working on, meanwhile, what are you reading?

Filed under: Uncategorized

Split This Rock 2014

I am looking forward to Split This Rock in 2014!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: poetry, Split This Rock