4/3/2019 20th Century LGBTQ American Poetry - Google Docs

Queer

Frank Bidart, 1939

Lie to yourself about this and you will

forever lie about everything.
Everybody already knows everything
so you can
lie to them. That’s what they want.
But lie to yourself, what you will
lose is yourself. Then you
turn into them.
*
For each gay kid whose adolescence
was America in the forties or fifties
the primary, the crucial
scenario
forever is coming out—
or not. Or not. Or not. Or not. Or not.
*
Involuted velleities of self-erasure.
*
Quickly after my parents
died, I came out. Foundational narrative
designed to confer existence.
If I had managed to come out to my
mother, she would have blamed not
me, but herself.
The door through which you were shoved out
into the light
was self-loathing and terror.
*
Thank you, terror!
You learned early that adults’ genteel
fantasies about human life
were not, for you, life. You think sex
is a knife
driven into you to teach you that.

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/11/frank-bidarts-poetry-of-saying-the-unsaid

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frank-bidart

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/frank-bidart

Frank Bidart was born in Bakersfield, California in 1939. He studied at University of California
at Riverside and at Harvard University. While Bidart was studying for his undergraduate degree,
he familiarized himself with the work of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Bidart was gay and had
written a number of his pieces about his beliefs and feelings in hopes to influence others to come
out and say what people were afraid to say. He wanted to make a difference and change society’s
view on LGBTQ topics.

Lie to yourself about this and you will

forever lie about everything.

^These above lines are the start to Bidart’s poem “Queer”. When he begins to discuss
lying to one’s self about who they are and who they identify as (ex. their sexuality or gender
identification), there is no going back as he believes you will continue to tell yourself these lies
about being who you are not. He continues on to state that you can tell others a lie, but by lying
to yourself, it is something regrettable and hard to alter in the future. You could possibly lose
yourself and sight of who you are in the future by the constant lies one keeps feeding to themself.
As being gay or lesbian was not really socially acceptable in the 1930s and 1940s, many young
people and children kept this to themselves and would always tell themselves that they cannot be
free and be who they are out in public; they keep telling themselves that their feelings are wrong
and invalid and should change how they think and act to fit in society or else they will stand out
and possibly even have to retract and be made fun of. Adults and parents taught kids from a
young age that being and feeling differently was unacceptable and that they all had to be in
uniform with society and what society deemed right and acceptable. Being gay was not okay;
and Bidart tried to convey in this poem the struggles of such teachings and findings and the
harms and even traumas kids feel about being themselves and loving who they want. It was hard
to love whoever you want during this time. Society said no. If you love differently, Bidart said
that society basically said it is almost a sin and you should loathe yourself if you love differently
than everyone else.

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Poem About My Rights

By: June Jordan
Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies f*** me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they f****d me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they

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claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity

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of each and every desire

that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

(This is a very long but very powerful poem!!!!)

https://www.biography.com/people/june-jordan-9358043

June Jordan was born on July 9, 1936 in Harlem, New York. She taught at several universities
and was a global voice for marginalized communities. She had a rather difficult childhood; she
always looked up to her father, even though he was rather abusive at times. When she was in her
ttens, her mother committed suicide. She was very involved with the activism for LGBTQ rights;
“Speaking to a need to survive and carve a place for herself in a world that could be unjust,
Jordan also used her writing and teaching to provide a voice for others who have been oppressed,
highlighting important issues around race, gender, sexuality (Jordan herself was bisexual) and
Third World politics in a host of published formats. She received many accolades and awards,
including Prix de Rome funding, a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and a National
Endowment of the Arts fellowship. She also established the community program Poetry for the
People at UC Berkeley.” (biography.com)

without changing my clothes my shoes

my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/

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alone on the streets/alone not being the point/

the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city

In Jordan’s poem, she discusses very heavy topics that were major issues throughout her
lifetime and even still in today’s world and society. The above lines capture the essence of the
rest of the poem, discussing the struggles in society LGBT people and women in general face.
Being of different sexuality or being trans has had many face a great deal of backlash and
negativity. You cannot go out without the fear of judgement and harsh comments if the
people/society around you are unaccepting of the you you decided to be. Especially being
female, there is a lot that can happen or go wrong upon coming out as one of the LGBT
categories (for lack of better words). Jordan continued on in her poem to discuss the struggles
LGBT women face with rape and sexual harassment or assault. Some people no longer consider
her body to be hers and try to exploit it for their own purposes and pleasures, leading to the
furthering of rape culture seen around the country. She states in her poem about society’s views
on people like her; all calling her the wrong everything, “I have been wrong the wrong sex the
wrong age the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the wrong need the wrong dream the
wrong geographic the wrong sartorial” (Jordan). She has become the meaning of rape due to her
wrongness. She is not allowed to be who she truly feels she is and love who she deems fit.

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El Beso

By: Angelina Weld Grimke

Twilight—and you
Quiet—the stars;
Snare of the shine of your teeth,
Your provocative laughter,
The gloom of your hair;
Lure of you, eye and lip;
Yearning, yearning,
Languor, surrender;
Your mouth,
And madness, madness,
Tremulous, breathless, flaming,
The space of a sigh;
Then awakening—remembrance,
Pain, regret—your sobbing;
And again, quiet—the stars,
Twilight—and you.

http://queerhistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/angelina-weld-grimke-1880-1958-african.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Angelina-Weld-Grimke
Angelina Weld Grimké was born on February 27, 1880 in Boston, MA. She was an
African-American poet and playwright and an important forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance.
She was born into a prominent biracial family of abolitionists and civil-rights activists. Her early
writings followed the struggles of racism and blacks in America. She falls into the LGBTQ
demographic as she was a lesbian who had written several works on the demographic with
support and love to share.

Although Grimké’s poem does not directly state that it is about or for the LGBTQ
demographic, one can imply from her writing that she had intents of writing for another female
(or how or who anyone wishes to interpret this poem for). She describes this powerful love she
feels towards someone, how they are breathtaking and never cease to amaze her even with the
smallest and simplest things like the “gloom of you hair” or the “shine of your teeth” or “your
provocative laughter” (Grimké). Many people who fall into this demographic feel such intense
feelings of love or happiness for themselves or another person, but many are unable to express
their thoughts and emotions due to either lack of support or their lack of the ability to speak out
about their love as it may be greeted with harsh responses. The pain and regret discussed in the
end of the poem may not only be for the person the poem may be about, but for the interpreter
themselves as they may struggle and feel so much regret for not sharing aloud their thoughts and
feelings. Someone may long and yearn to be with another person whom they have a great
amount of love for, but are unable to do so due to many societies, families, cultures, and even
religions being against the LGBTQ demographic. They are lured in by the person’s captivating

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features and aspects, but struggle to act upon these feelings as they may be terrified of the
outcome and what others would say about everything.

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One Art

Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 - 1979

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/11/frank-bidarts-poetry-of-saying-the-unsaid

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop

http://www.raintaxi.com/elizabeth-bishop-a-miracle-for-breakfast/

Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts and grew up there and in Nova
Scotia, Canada. Bishop had lots of influence and had made several literary friends over the years
and her time spent in college. After some time, she traveled the world and learned new things
that she was then able to transfer into her writing. Bishop had several things to say and write
about the LGBTQ community/demographic as she was lesbian herself.

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I used this poem for my poetry project last year! When I was researching different poets of this
demographic, she came up and I remembered this poem and was like yes! I can write about this
and describe all of the demographic with it!!!!

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

So many things seem filled with the intent

To be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Bishop wrote this poem, describing the art of losing and what one has to do in order to
master the art. When one is able to lose and accept it every time, this art becomes easier to
master and overcome over time. When dealing with the LGBTQ demographic and community,
many people who are apart of it do not truly feel at peace with themselves, so feel as though they
have lost who they are and their value due to society’s backlash. As one begins to lose touch with
themselves, they now possess the ability to lose the rest of their love and life much faster with
less pain. If they cannot love who they want or be/identify as who they please, it becomes hard to
function as you just do not feel right. You can lose your sense of hope in the world as one can
now see all the negativity more clearly as they have experienced a great deal of it themselves.
When Bishop states “I lost two cities, lovely ones” (Bishop), she could be inferring the loss of
her loved ones, people who have stood by her side and supported and loved her unconditionally.
This can reflect the feelings and emotions of the demographic as many have lost loved ones due
to what society deemed as the “norm”. The art of losing has become a custom to many; the
struggles of being different preventing full love and freedoms to those who just wish to be
themselves.

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