the darkling thrust

gay poems 1982-3

Although AIDS—not thus named—is already a thing by now, gay poetry doesn’t seem to be talking about it. James White, after whom the James White Review was named, died in 1981 apparently not of AIDS, leaving behind a mostly mediocre book of poems with some sad gay ones:

Brokeback Mountain but make it about cry-sturbation.

Also notable was the start of Ronald Johnson’s ARK, heralded by, there he is again, Robert Duncan. The unbearable Guy Davenport (whose papers at UT Austin contained so much pasted-in child porn some documents had to be destroyed lol) apparently called Johnson “America's greatest living poet” so of course he’s doing insane pompous pseudo-erudition:

I was momentarily intrigued by barebacking Pegasus but… no. On purpose poirposed?! There are kinds of gay wizardry and bombast that appeal to me—Ginsberg in some of The Fall of America, O’Hara’s sun over Fire Island, and Aaron Shurin yesterday—but this, well, straight people can have it (and Davenport!).

And Cooper had another book:

Despite what lying Ed White says, this is not the product of an awesome talent, but of one going more and more astray from the flesh:

Teenage nihilism was barely enjoyable when Daria did it (and at least she had Jane).

Somehow Cooper manages to find dark blank unenjoyment even in the funnest and feelingest of bands:

This is absolutely not the experience of doing coke and listening to ABBA. And I dream I’m an eagle! And I dream I can spread my wiiings!

1982-3 did have some weird forgotten books—like this one, which is actually barely even a book, more of a print-off that for some reason was given a preface by the gay Catholic group Dignity?

The sex-with-Jesus poem is not so interesting to me (if you can eat God, sucking him off seems hardly any further a step), but I couldn’t help thinking of Kenneth from 30 Rock reading this one:

I’ll spare you the rest—it goes on for pages (ahah).

Another gem (that’s Rimbaud becoming one on the cover) is from Don Yorty, who is still alive and publishing in Brooklyn Rail, albeit nothing now so compellingly bonkers as this chapbook-length conversation between Burroughs and Socrates set at a Tiajuana donkey show:

Finally, Axel Soestmeyer, a German-American with a unique approach to vocabulary, had some roughhewn sex poems:

I’m into it! I hear Hopkins’ weird Anglosaxony neologisms and sprung rhythm, and Cranes’ reworking of the same, but in a leather clone setting more like those of Thom Gunn’s contemporaneous work.

A brief review of the book in the July/August 1982 issue of gay Canadian journal The Body Politic says: These are tormented, wordy poems, often reflective of the auth-or's European ties… Soestmeyer's work is riddled with words like "barren," "crippled," "stunted." … his writing tends to be literally unspeakable. Coupled with the pained self-pity, this makes for a dismal read. But come on, reviewer, you’re missing the humor! The “darkling thrust” (homage to Hardy), that’s a good one.

There’s a glossary in the back if like the poor reviewer your vocab needs a brush up:

Lol. Well I wish I knew more about him, but I don’t know, except that he was dead, young, already when the book came out in 1982…