Christopher Matthew Hennessy's Blog, page 14

Hot guy, caption contest, and me wantin' your vote

Hey, you! Click on over to Avoiding the Muse to see a picture of a hot half-nekkid man in a weird picture and see if you like my caption of said photo enough to vote for me! Takes about 5 secs.  Cheers!  (Did I mention the hot guy?)

Ange Milinko on The H.D. Book and Duncan

From the Nation, Ange Milinko on The H.D. Book and Duncan. Contains this moment:

If responsibility to poetry was at odds with "success," then poetry for Duncan was a rebellion initiated, nourished and encouraged by women because they were so often denied a chance to succeed. Miss Keough was his "Beatrice," Athalie and Lili were his "audience," his "nurses," but H.D. was something altogether different: a master. Is the sexual agon between men and women so fierce that only a gay man could place a woman in that role? Duncan too speculated: "Men live uneasily with or under the threat of genius in women."

E.M. Forster: It Gets Better

Dan Savage finds an "It Gets Better" message from Forster. Talk about a man ahead of his time.

Lee Stone?

I find this picture somehow haunting.

Does anyone know antying about gay poet Lee Stone? The notes on the back of the photo read: "Lee Stone, gay poet and member of GLF helped out many gay street people and other poor folk on the lower east side N.Y. 1971."

Cavafy translated into the image

This could be hot: Photographs Inspired by the Poems of C.P. Cavafy.  Here's a review.

With Shades of Love (Insight Editions), photographer Dimitris Yeros adds himself to the list of serious Cavafy fans. The oversize book is a collection of Cavafy poems and Yeros's mostly homoerotic photographs. There are some wonderful portraits, many of the gay artists who have loved Cavafy's poetry.

Rugby, the gay song

For the record, I think this is sort of dumb, but since I played rugby in college (and had mad crushes on some of the blokes), I can't resist posting this. A few hot guys for those of who care about that sort of thing, too. And for the record, my teammates really supported me despite me obviously not being that athletic. Great guys, they were. What a time!

Mainstream culture's great discomfor with gay art?

Reading log: 3/11/2011

"It is the innate understanding that human sexuality has homosexual potential—no matter what someone's stated sexual identity might be—that lies at the heart of the great discomfort mainstream culture feels toward art and popular culture created by gay people."

Michael Bronski, The Pleasure Principle

Radiant Losses

A review on Lambda of Radiant Losses by Tony Leuzzi:

Leuzzi is also refreshingly open in terms of sexuality: aroused and slightly confused or reluctant but not – as one assumes of the poet gay – rhapsodic. One of the most beautifully simple poems, "Once," may or not be homoerotic and that ambiguity actually gives the poem its authenticity.

Check out the rest to get much more and some lines from "Once."

Video of gay writing symposium

Click below for video symposium: (thanks Band of Thebes)

What makes a piece of writing gay? The author? The subject matter? The characters? Is Queer literature alive and well in Australia, and what value is there in identifying it as such? In this Wheeler Centre discussion, some of Australia's finest gay and lesbian writers talk about whether they are indeed Gay and Lesbian Writers. How central is the sexuality to their work? Panel comprises: Benjamin Law, Fiona McGregor, William Yang and (host) Sophie Cunningham Presented by The Wheeler Centre, March 2011

Queer Literary readings, salons

A Next Magazine article:

Thankfully, a growing legion of salons, reading groups and zines are making sure gay texts both past and present remain in our consciousness.

A nagging question remains, though: With kids coming out earlier and to a more accepting society, many of the tropes of gay culture—coming out, otherness, transgression—seem to be going by the wayside. How do we define queer lit in 2011? "What's wonderful about the term 'queer' is its resistance to static definitions," Boggs explains.  "I think for sure we're seeing less books and readings about books that could be called coming-out narratives.  Now it's more of a question of coming out into what? Into a normative heterosexual-styled way of living?  Or as a trans guy who used to be a girl who liked girls but is now a boy who maybe likes boys?"