Catherine Halley

Poem, Category, Relationships, Gay

As you might know, it’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender month here in the good old U.S. of A.  In the hope of promoting some quality queer poetry and some quality queer poems here on the poetryfoundation.org, we’ve got a section of our Poetry Tool dedicated to “gay” poems, whatever that means.

Let’s say we decide to include poems based on the subject matter regardless of the poet’s purported or claimed orientation. What’s missing from our list? I don’t mean to ask what are the best queer poems about love, though I’m interested in that too. I mean what’s in our Poetry Tool already that’s not tagged as a gay poem and should be?

You might start by browsing around what’s listed under the broader categories of poems about relationships or poems about love and desire. But we have over 8,500 poems in the archive, so we wouldn’t be surprised if you found them elsewhere too…

06.12.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9)

Catherine Halley

Poem I Love: Jane Miller’s “Miami Heart”

I once heard Jane Miller recite this poem in a large amphitheater in the Midwest where I swear she read the whole thing in one breath. I love the pace of the poem–how it speeds up, slows down, and finally ends in a rich silence–and what I take to be its clever allusion to Denise Levertov’s “O Taste and See” and Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much with Us“.

Miami Heart

In a long text, on live tv, in an amphitheater, in the soil,
after the post-moderns, after it is still proven
you can get a smile out of a pretty girl,
after the meta-ritual lectures,
after the flock to further awareness bends “south,”
and Heinz switches to plastic squeeze bottles,
as one flies into St. Louis listening to Lorca’s “Luna, luna, luna…,”
beyond Anacin time,
after, God help us, the dishwasher is emptied again,
and Miss America, Miss Mississippi, reveals she has entered 100 pageants
since age six,
Packer’s ball, first down after a fumble,
the corn detassled,
the assembly of enthusiasms awakened,
and we meet in a car by the river
not not kissing, considering
making love, visiting Jerusalem, the awful daily knowledge
we have to die in a hospital on the sixth floor, in a lecture, on live tv,
or in an amphitheater at half-time,
at one’s parents’ condo, over pasta,
in a strange relative’s arms, in debt, along the coast, staring
at a lighthouse, the heart bumping, bumping the old pebble up the old spine,
a squirrel scared up a sycamore by an infant,
along this stench of humility, along that highway of come,
charge card in hand,
I shall give my time freely
and the more I dissemble the more I resemble
and the more I order the more I reveal I hide,
the better, the faster
I sleep the more I remember
to go elsewhere,
a movie, excuse me, now I must whisper
not to disturb the patrons,
now I must drive, now park, tramp to the edge of the world,
roughness, ferocity, cannibalism,
bite, chew, transmogrify,
inside the lungs the little revolutionaries, between the thighs the reflex
it’s too this, it’s too that, it’s not enough,
similarly, and more particularly, it’s raw twice over,
it’s the imagination draining its husks, left-handed,
because comparison is motive, which is why
one writes with one’s desire.

Find “Miami Heart” and more Jane Miller poems here.

06.09.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8)

Catherine Halley

Chicago Poetry Tour Premiere

Chicago Poetry Tour (poster by Kathleen Judge)

If you’re in Chicago this weekend, head to the Printers’ Row Lit Fest, where you can browse tons of books, hear all kinds of authors, and explore the treasures and charms of the Printers Row district.

At the Arts & Poetry Stage on Saturday, from 5:00 to 6:00 PM, the Poetry Foundation is presenting the Chicago Poetry Tour Premiere, a reading to celebrate the launch of the Chicago Poetry Tour, our new multi-media tour of poetry written in and about Chicago. (Have you taken it yet? If not, you must!) It promises to be quite the showcase of Chicago poetry; here’s the complete line-up:

Danielle Chapman
Marion Coleman
Stuart Dybek
Reginald Gibbons
Bucky Halker
Gretchen Kalwinski
Quraysh Ali Lansana
Haki Madhubuti
Molly Meacham
Peter O’Leary
Bill Savage
Marc Smith
Ellen Wadey
Christian Wiman
Stephen Young

Please join us!

06.03.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Catherine Halley

Lorine Niedecker

A few weeks ago, I got a tip from a coworker that a documentary film about Lorine Niedecker was being shown at Loyola University. I used to be the only person I knew who knew who Lorine Niedecker was, so naturally I had to drop everything I was doing to go see the film. I’m glad I did. The film, Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, is written and directed by Cathy Cook. It’s full of gorgeous photography of Wisconsin flora and fauna, and offers an interesting if selective introduction to Niedecker’s life and work. In this case, seeing is hearing, and I’d recommend it to people who want help hearing her poems. The blank space in her poems is well-served by the nature shots that comprise the film.

The film made me reread her for the first time in a long while, and discover how relevant she still is. “Poet’s work“, ironically, is a poem that sees in poetry a trade from which there are no layoffs. More of her work can be found here.

05.20.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)