Miguel Murphy (Editor) discussed his call for submissions for this issue of OCHO in his intelligent, passionate, and poetic guest post here on Harriet. I just wanted to say that the issue is now available and features the wonderful work of the following poets:
Eduardo C. Corral, Mary Meriam, Jeremy Halinen, Christine Leclerc, C. Dale Young, Julie R. Enszer, Matthew Hittinger, Steve Fellner, Linda Benninghoff, Scott Hightower, Franciszka Voeltz, Brent Goodman, Christian Gregory, Jen Currin, Charles Jensen, Tamiko Beyer, D.M. Solis, Brian Leary, Dean Kostos, Julie Weber, Blas Falconer, Francisco Aragon, Elizabeth J. Colen, RJ Gibson, Jee Leong Koh, Carol Guess, Christian Gullette, Monica Teresa Ortiz.
I didn’t watch the Oscars. But I did watch the clips online of Dustin Lance Black (screenwriter of Milk) and Sean Penn (Milk impersonator) giving their acceptance speeches. It was heartening to me to hear Penn calling out the anti-gay, anti-marriage forces for their hate, denouncing them as shameful, because the vote against family for gay people is shameful and hateful, a bedrock disenfranchisement of home and love. These votes are acts of violence, are crimes, and need to be named crimes, need to be pointed out as violent, the people pushing for them as opponents of family and love, justice and equality.
I appreciate Murphy’s call for an engagement in poetry. My own poems have stayed in my notebooks because they are fearfully angry and bloody. I am not ready to see them in the world.