Once a poem gets under the skin, it survives and takes on a life of its own. Author Gunn, who has spent years cataloging and...

Once a poem gets under the skin, it survives and takes on a life of its own. Author Gunn, who has spent years cataloging and exploring gay mysteries, gay pulps, and gay drama through the ages, turns to poetry for his last work.

From the Introduction: "Facing my own mortality, I gradually became more forthcoming about my personal relations with the poems. And when I reached the second half of the twentieth century, I increasingly allowed my own taste to determine which poets I wanted to explore.... Each new book I publish becomes my favorite, but I think I have genuinely enjoyed writing this one the most, perhaps because I have been more willing to open up in ways I never had before."

And so Gunn covers poetry that we can refer to as gay, in the modern sense, even if the modern sense of being gay had yet to happen. From the story of Gilgamesh and the biblical passages of David and Jonathan to Persian homoerotic poems to bawdy verse by the Earl of Rochester. Gunn addresses names familiar to many of us: Wilde and Whitman, Genet and Ginsburg, but also poets that deserve more attention, such as Roger Casement, Jaime Gil de Biedman, and Hal Duncan. This book will provide an engaging introduction to great works of poetry that will inspire gay men.

Author: Drewey Wayne Gunn
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 04/16/2018
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781590216910

About the Author
Gunn, Drewey Wayne: - Drewey Wayne Gunn grew up a farmboy in North Carolina. He received his B.A. from Wake Forest University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He taught for two years at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. In 1968 he joined the faculty at Texas A&I University located in the heart of King Ranch country. He visited Europe for the first time as a Fulbright teacher to Denmark. The next year he met and fell in love with Jacques Murat, a translator for Air France. He taught at the Institut Reine in Versailles and at the Université de Metz. As it became harder for Americans to hold a green card, he returned to A&I in 1977 (it became Texas A&M University-Kingsville in 1993), and he and Jacques began a long-distance marriage made bearable by the generous vacations both received and by large phone bills with AT&T. Jacques died of a heart attack in 1994, the year after he retired. Wayne retired in 2001 and was named Professor Emeritus the following year. While taking care of his mother during the last stages of her cancer, he returned to reading gay mysteries, and a whole new career was formed as he delved more deeply into his gay heritage. Two of his books were finalists for a Lambda Literary Award. The Jernigan Library at Texas A&M University-Kingsville circulates the greater part of its Drewey Wayne Gunn Collection of Gay Literature.