Christopher Matthew Hennessy's Blog, page 13
May 13, 2011
"It was really written for undergrads-presumably to answer the question we hear so often from them: "Why were so many artists (or writers) gay?"
From a listserv I'm on:
Christopher Reed's Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas, Oxford University Press.
The poster writes: It's a big, beautiful, brilliant book, full of full-color prints of works of art and artifacts from a variety of different cultures and across the ages.
Reed is a modernist, so about two-thirds of the book deals with Western
cultures from the late 19th Century to the present, but the early chapters
provide invaluable examples of the ways contemporary Western understandings
both of homosexuality and of art do and do not help us to meaningfully
understand the sexual practices and visual/material productions of those
times and cultures or of our own. Examples are taken from the ancient
Greeks, of course, but also from the Sambia of New Guinea, the Berdache of
North America, from Tokugawa Japan, medieval Europe, the Renaissance, etc.
Reed's most intriguing insight is that Foucault's theories about the history
of homosexuality in many ways apply equally to the history of art, for these
two concepts developed at the same time and ideologically in parallel. The
artist and the homosexual as socio-cultural types therefore share much, a
fact of which the public (and our undergrads) are well aware, but one art
historians before Reed have not acknowledged and accounted for.
Though the book will hold immense appeal for queer theorists and historians,
as well as those who just love looking at glossy prints of queer art, it was
really written for undergrads-presumably to answer the question we hear so
often from them: "Why were so many artists (or writers) gay?" Reed does an
excellent job of showing us and our students why some of the art that looks
so "obviously gay" to us today really isn't, or at least wasn't understood
that way at the time it was produced, but also of explaining how some works
of art that may not read as queer to us today really were; that is, they
participated in a counter-cultural artistic homoerotic discourse. Having
been lucky enough to have access to the book prior to its publication, I've
used it with great success several times this last semester to teach visual
arts in an interdisciplinary Western Civ type humanities elective for
undergrads. The book will be invaluable, I think, for those teaching
courses designated as LGBT or queer.
May 10, 2011
Another Amazon review for Outside the Lines
Wow! Looks like in Feb. of this year someone reviewed my first book of interviews on Amazon! I didn't even know! That's always nice to discover.
Here's the reviewer's comments:
What an interesting book. An interviewer who has done his homework, who stays away from the 'obvious' interview questions, and who gives the poet as much control of the direction of the interview as he wants (both in person, over the phone, and by E-mail, incidentally). The resulting book engages the reader in the poets' personalities and the resultant poetry. One thing that sticks in my mind: so many of these poets cite Elizabeth Bishop among their poetic 'teachers.' I knew about her friendship with and influence on James Merrill, but I have obviously not been giving her enough credit overall.
It's not much, but hey I'll take it! I love it when folks share the love. Thanks, sir! If you've read the book and care to post a brief review, here's the page!
May 8, 2011
Anthology News
I'm so pleased to announce my poem "The Carriers" will be included in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, which has been accepted for publication by The University of Akron Press with an anticipated publication date of early spring 2012. I'm so excited! Big thanks to editor Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz. Go over to their Facebook fan page and LIKE to stay up to date with news.
May 6, 2011
May 5, 2011
Speedway / Poem of the Day : The Poetry Foundation
Speedway / Poem of the Day : The Poetry Foundation.
Audio of Cedar Sigo's poem in memory of John Wieners
April 7, 2011
March 27, 2011
I'm tweeting again
I've been unable to blog as much as I'd like lately, but I've been tweeting more lately, and you can check my tweets out to your left. If you're also on Twitter, follow me: Identity_Poetic. That's an underscore between the two words.
Here are my most recent tweets, also at left:
Book Review – A Saving Remnant – The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds – By Martin Duberman – http://nyti.ms/hCbfoF
7-hour symposium on Culture Wars : http://bit.ly/gBUZQN
Via @nprnews: Tennessee At 100: Forever 'The Poet Of The Outcast' | n.pr/ig2MLa
Advice columnist sees a future in #poetry http://nyr.kr/i9DanE via @bookbench
25 Mar Favorite Undo Retweet Reply
Poet's House
For this beauty,/ beauty without strength,/ chokes out life. ~H.D.
March 18, 2011
Tennessee Williams, Mae West style gays, and Williams' on what a gay is/should be
Reading Log 3/18/2011
In an interview in Gay Sunshine, Williams talk about how he hate the visibility of gays who look like "travesties of Mae West…They make the whole homosexual thing seem ridiculous. Homosexuals are not like that. They're indistinguishable from the straight man, except that the [sic] have more sensibility and they are more inclined to be good artists."
Where does one even start with this comment?
