When I Was Straight - Julie Marie Wade (A Midsummer Night's Press)

Today's book of poetry:
When I Was Straight.  Julie Marie Wade.  A Midsummer Night's Press.  Body Language 11.  New York, New York.  2014.

It's only every once in a while I get to read a book of poetry like Julie Marie Wade's When I Was Straight.  They just don't come along all that often.  Why?  Because writing one fine poem is hard work -- writing a book full of them is almost impossible.  Wade never misses a beat, if she were shooting arrows the bullseye would be full.

When I Was Straight is a teeter totter of excellence, a balancing act of humour and pathos.  Wade marches right into the middle of all our misconceptions about what it is to be queer and comes out the other side in full pride stride.

When I Was Straight

Everything came to me vicariously -- a promise,

a post-script, a preview of coming attractions.

Desire a quiet rumour that rippled through the halls.

At the cinema, someone always paid for popcorn, a soda

with two straws, little licorice candies.

I loved to sit in the back row & watch

till all the credits rolled.

"You have a gift," the blond boy said, "for stalling."

Later, in a twin bed in a college dorm, I spoke without

     thinking--

"I like you. Let's get this over with."

His pink mouth amazed, so wide & round.

"Did you hear what you just said?" he asked.

I hadn't been listening.

...

These confessional poems are as celebratory as they are sensational.  Wade is so damned charming and at ease in the world that the big declarations she is tattooing into your senses don't hurt a bit.  

Julie Marie Wade might have also considered a career as a stand-up comic because her timing is Rolex and her punch lines all George Foreman.

Today's book of poetry was entertained at every turn.  Wade is wicked smart and it shows in every poem.  She never employs the heavy hand but we are certain she has one when needed.

When My

Mother Learns

I Am A Lesbian

At first, silence, & then a thud of breath as if

her throat has slid through the chute of her lungs

& landed, heavy -- like a stone -- like a sword

lodged suddenly inside it.

"This explains why you don't wear make-up!" she wails.

A snap -- a pulsing panic pulled back & lightly

camouflaged as fear: "What will I tell my friends?

How can I tell my friends? I can never tell my friends!"

Finally, fatigued & determined: "No one must know."

I give her permission to lie -- privilege she takes

as right. I promise her nothing has changed except

the second chromosome of the body resting next to me.

She asks, not wanting the answer: "I suppose you have

to sleep in the same bed?"

- No, in sleeping bags, Mom, cocooned on separate couches

still wrapped in our swaddling clothes. -

I could have said it, but I didn't.

No tolerance for the Absurd.

My mother's voice, all tissue paper & cellophane,

turns tearful, liquid in its pain: "Where did we go wrong?"

I want to tell her not to forgive me, plead through

the twisted wires that she will not waste her prayers.

"We raised you with God's laws," she says.

"We told you to be pure."

"You raised me to love," I say.

"You told me to be happy."

- But she didn't mean this way, didn't mean this way.

Dear God, she didn't mean this way. -

I watch out the window, sigh.

Already prayers are streaming up the sky.

...

We had a splendid read in the Today's book of poetry offices this morning.  It almost feels like spring in Ottawa today and our winter crazy staff are now willing to suspend their disbelief.  Everyone intoning a brief incantation of "please, no more snow!"

So, it was high stepping optimism ruling the floor this morning with Julie Marie Wade's When I Was Straight providing the fire and gender works.

Wade didn't get to her gracious heights without some other blazers cutting a path and setting a trail. Wade doffs her respectful hat to Maureen Seaton and her poem "When I Was Straight" and to Denise Duhamel and her poem "When I Was A Lesbian."  Wade tells us in her notes that When I Was Straight would simply not exist without the influence of Seaton and Duhamel.

When An Old

Classmate Learns

I Am A Lesbian

"Oh my God! I knew it! I always knew it. I was

like Julie is so gay, & people were like oh,

whatever, you just think everybody's gay because

it's an all-girls school, but I knew I wasn't gay, &

I knew most of those girls weren't gay, so I was

like fuck you, Jasmine, go suck on one of your

Jolly Rancher rings! Do you remember those?

So, how's it going? Do you have a girlfriend or

something? I have to tell you in college I had a 

gay roommate, & she got lucky like every single

night. Seriously. I'd come back to the room &

there'd be some ribbon tied around the door,

so I'd have to hang out by the vending

machines in the lobby looking like a total loser.

I never saw the girls go, through, I guess they

must have gone out the fire escape or

something. Nobody thinks there would be that

many gay girls in Iowa, you know, but I guess

they're kind of everywhere now. Do you still

live on the West Coast or what? If I were gay

I would be like San Francisco, here I come, but

truth be told, it's kind of dirty. My boyfriend took

me there once -- we're actually engaged so

technically he's my fiance now, but you know,

he wasn't then, so -- we just walked around a lot &

got some of that good chocolate & saw the seals.

& I was like hey, isn't there some really cool old prison

that you can see if you take a ferry from here, & then

he was like San Francisco is full of fairies, ha, ha!

I hope that doesn't offend you. I mean, I thought

it was funny, but my boyfriend is like totally down

with gay people. He would really like you because

you're smart & it's kind of hot when a girl isn't

into you at all, you know? Well, I guess you would

want a girl to be into you, huh? So scratch that.

But I mean most girls are always trying to get with

him & then I have to be like whoa, hands off, that's

my man. Sometimes I think it would be so much

easier to be gay. It would just take all the pressure

off. I wouldn't have to get my hair done or worry

how my boobs looked, & if somebody called me

fat, I could just be like I'm a lesbian, douchebag.

I mean, seriously, do you even have to wax?

...

Wade has no qualms about using humour/sarcasm to get us where we need to go.  When I Was Straight is one of those books you need to get into the hands of every queer person you know because it will make them feel better about the world.  Then we need to get When I Was Straight into the hands of every straight person because it will make them smarter.

Julie Marie Wade kills it.

Julie Marie Wade

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Marie Wade (Seattle, 1979) completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003, a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Louisville in 2012.

She is the author of Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010; Bywater Books, 2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir; Without: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2010), selected for the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Series; Small Fires: Essays (Sarabande Books, 2011), selected for the Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature; Postage Due: Poems & Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2013), winner of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series; and Tremolo: An Essay (Bloom Books, 2013), winner of the Bloom Nonfiction Chapbook Prize.

Wade is a member of the creative writing faculty at Florida International University and a regular reviewer for Florida Book Review, Lambda Literary Review, and The Rumpus.

She lives with her partner, Angie Griffin, and their two cats in Dania Beach.

BLURB

“Julie Marie Wade’s lush post-confessional poems are unabashed in their desire, tentative then bold in their knowledge. They’re sparkly talismans to transform and transport us, delicacies with creamy insides to fill us up. WHEN I WAS STRAIGHT is a profound ‘before and after’ examination of the self, complete with cultural and family commentary—delightful, heartbreaking, magic and real stories with a multitude of prepositions to guide us: a gifted young poet’s coming to, coming out, coming jubilantly back into self. ”

     - Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Handmade Love - Julie R. Enszer (A Midsummer Night's Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Handmade Love.  Julie R. Enszer.  Body Language 05.  A Midsummer Night's Press.  New York, New York.  2010.

Julie R. Enszer's erotic poetry turns up the temperature of the room while gender politics clash against the day to day struggle of being human, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender - which could make for a muddled dialectic but unlike this opening sentence Enszer doesn't get bogged down or falter.  

These poems are lightning flashes of sultry love.

Morning Pant

I know what women want to eat in the morning.

On Sunday, in college, I would cook eggs,

scrambled or fried, potatoes, and bacon--

pork then was still a subversion. Breakfast

for my best friend and the man she slept with last night.

I knew what women wanted to eat in the morning.

Alone on Saturday, I found ways to feed them on Sunday: eggs,

scrambled or fried, potatoes, and bacon.

The prospect of seducing a woman seemed simple, but

my best friend seduced the man she slept with last night

leaving my bed empty, my hands idle, my lips

alone on Saturday, until I found ways to feed them on Sunday.

Sauces can satisfy the need to break from the mundane.

The prospect of seducing a woman seems simple:

wine, marinara arrabiata, raspberry coulis. Delicious dinner still

left my bed empty, my hands idle, my lips

dry. I could only imagine the shimmer of gloss

sauce. Satisfy the need to break from the mundane

on my lips: a wax or paraffin base. Vaseline in a pinch.

Franzia, tomato sauce, berry puree -- a delicious dinner still,

but I imagined more -- a peak that would not leave my pussy

dry. I could imagine only the shimmer of gloss

from a woman's juices on my chin after licking and licking

her lips. No wax or paraffin. (Third) base; Vaseline; a pinch.

Then I met a woman one Sunday, in college.

Finally I had more -- a peak that left my pussy

weary but satisfied. After rest she begged for more:

I know what women want to eat in the morning.

...

Enszer is so matter of fact clear at every turn that we never get left behind, we follow her as she bids, along a clever trail of anger and lust and discovery.  As new as some of this is for the reader it seems Enszer is making some discoveries along the way as well.  Love and desire both get big workouts in Handmade Love and joy gets in there too.

Enszer makes no apologies for her feminist agenda (nor should she) which is clearly, eloquently and humorously laid bare with panache.

Absolutely No Car Repairs

In The Parking Lot

Three people are working on old, American cars.

One man with a white van -- his mobile mechanic's shop --

has pulled the engine out of a black Monte Carlo.

Another crawls from under a Sunbird

rusted and battered tail pipe in hand.

The third, an Escort, hood open, unattended.

Owners ostensibly inside the auto supply

searching for the proper replacement part.

Although I didn't need one, I've brought a man.

Newly minted. Nine months ago, breasts removed --

scars from the surgical drains healed quickly

now the only skin rupture from needles

delivering daily hormones he refers to as T,

and the resulting faux-adolescent acne pimpling his face.

He's more of a man than me. Still, it takes us two tries

with a return in between to find wiper blades that fit.

...

Now that all of the Today's book of poetry staff are back from holiday adventures we were all crackling with excitement at this morning's read.  Handmade Love made for a heated and spicy reading.  The consensus around the room was that Julie R. Enszer is an eloquently fearless poet and there are never enough of those to go around.

These poems are a genuine celebration of love and diversity.  These celebrations of love and diversity make for good poems.  The day to day of supposedly alternative lifestyles and cultures does not sound unfamiliar in Enszer's capable hands - and why should it?  People love and lust pretty much the same regardless of their performative gender.  And that's the truth Ruth.

Terms of Endearment

I mistakenly called you "missy"--

an inappropriate term of endearment for

a butch lesbian, the identity I assumed

you to have with your cropped hair, hip-riding

jeans and top buttoned down. Let me confess:

I assumed your identity for my own purposes.

I have an entire fantasy about your body and

what I could do with it based on your being

lesbian and butch. Then I learned you consider

yourself to be male -- transgendered.

Yes, "missie" seems inappropriate.

Yet without diminutive feminizations

I am left with few options to coo affection.

Immediately, I'd like to say "FTM trannie" and cast

upon you my feminine wiles, but can I?

I try Buddy? Pal? You chide me not to stoop to

Bubba. I won't. Still, all the phrases I think to utter

with cloying appreciation are wildly sexual--

How's it hanging? If I, an avowed fem lesbo,

flirt with you, now a man but still in a woman's body

(and, of course, with a woman lover),

Am I still gay? Or just queer? And if I don't

stoop, linguistically, that is,

but I would like to be on my knees and

have you fuck me from behind with a

big purple strap on like my wife does,

am I a homo? I just want to find

a word to address you and imbue it with affection.

I want to respect your gender identity and not reconsider

my own sexual orientation and erotic predilections.

That is probably too much to ask, which is why

my pussy is wet, my tongue is tied, and only my mind

has been fucked. Understand gender? Good luck.

...

Today's book of poetry believes that poetry this good blows right past simple discussions of sexual orientation stereotypes. This is a celebration for Enszer and a primer for the rest of us, one that opens up the door to every audience.

Handmade Love is strong and primal poetry, ultimately generous and humane.  With a side of hot sauce.

Julie R. Enszer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie R. Enszer, PhD, is the author of Handmade Love (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2010). LambdaLiterary.org praisedHandmade Love noting, “Anyone who’s loved Dorothy Allison’s early chapbook of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me, will recognize the same brash confidence and articulation in Julie Enszer’s work.” Rigoberto Gonzalez said, “This poet is fierce, politicized and not afraid to point to the flaws even within her communities,” and Richard Labonte said of Enszer, “With seductive clarity, she celebrates sexuality – her own, that of other women, and of men.”

Enszer is editor of Milk & Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2011). Hila Ratzabi said of Milk & Honey, “This collection packs a punch…. This anthology is endlessly valuable as a collective voice of celebration and even protest.” Milk & Honey features beloved poets like Ellen Bass, Robin Becker, Elana Dykewomon, Marilyn Hacker, Eleanor Lerman, Joan Nestle, Lesléa Newman and Ellen Orleans, as well as new and emerging voices.

With language and imagery that moves from the sensual and political to the tender and serene, Milk & Honey , a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry, explores the vibrant, complicated, exhilarating experience of being Jewish and lesbian—or queer—in the world today.

Enszer’s second full-length collection of poetry is Sisterhood (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013).

Enszer, who holds an MFA and a PhD from the University of Maryland, is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland. She is writing a history of lesbian-feminist presses from 1969 until 2000. Her public scholarship on lesbian poetry has been featured by the Poetry Foundation, the Poetry Society of America, Ms. Magazine, and The Huffington Post.

Enszer is the editor of Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, and a regular book reviewer for the Lambda Book Report and Calyx. You can read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.

Julie R. Enszer

"Beginnings", "Bed", "Dishes"

Video: Center Arts

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Fortunate Light - David Bergman (A Midsummer Night's Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Fortunate Light.  David Bergman.  Body Language 09.  A Midsummer Night's Press.  New York, New York.  2013.

You might want to know that A Midsummer Night's Press tell us that the 'Body Language' series is "devoted to texts exploring questions of gender and sexual identity."

For our purposes here at Today's book of poetry we want you to know that David Bergman's Fortunate Light burns with the best of them.  These poems are the bright kid in the class showing you how it is done.  These are Orca poems, top of the food chain stuff.

Bergman is firing tender lasers.

In Nordstrom's

Anything could be written on this face --

he is that young and unmarked

by imperfection, the skin smooth, the green

eyes grass at dawn. He finds my toes

in the shoes that are too long. He brings

out a size smaller. "Walk on them," he says.

"Hows do they feel?" he asks. In the presence

of such beauty, one forgets one's age and then

grows painfully aware of it. "They look good

on you," he nods, smiling. And for the first time

I notice all his clothes are wrong,

that any clothing would be wrong on the fine

light structure of his bones that was built

only for wings. Just wings.

...

Bergman is certainly writing poems that explore his sexual identity.  Beautifully gay.  Fortunate Light is a boutique museum with room after room of marble David's that Michelangelo would be proud of.  These poems are pretty much flawless, smooth as marble and solid as a rock.

Today's book of poetry loved the abiding tenderness in Bergman's ideals of intimacy and we loved the haughty horny virility of an older man's lusts.

But mostly Today's book of poetry greatly admired how flat out lovely Bergman's poems are.  These poems are nuanced without any gilding of the lily, they are clean as glass and splendidly, intensely erotic.

The Body Remember

The body remembers what the mind forgets.

Actors know this, and when their parts require

long-forgotten rage, they make a fist

and anger arrives just as they desire.

Pianists, too, rely upon their hands

to recall a piece they haven't played for years

and marshal the keyboard under their command

before the music rises to their ears.

And lovers who have long remained apart

because of argument or circumstance,

will feel, before it builds up in their heart,

pressures along the arm, then their embrace

releases from lips an unexpected grace,

words that they'd forgotten how to start.

...

This morning's read was another barn-burner.  Milo, our head tech, thought Bergman was the bee's knees.  Kathryn, our new intern, thought Bergman was hilarious in all the right ways.

Bergman is clearly a man with a sophisticated palette and an unlimited literary canon on his formidable shoulders but there is never any showing off.  These gems are as easy to access as opening the page and digging in, the rewards are immediate.  Smart doesn't necessarily have to mean impenetrable.

The Distractions of Beauty

Right after my reading, he appeared

so I could sign his book and talk. He was

seventy-five or so, small and thin,

with a well-trimmed arc of snow-white beard.

His wife of nearly fifty years had died

a year before, he told me, and he'd been

faithful to her even to the end, but now,

now he felt he wanted to be gay.

He always knew that he was gay,

but somehow -- times were different then --

he settled for a family and got

two sons, good boys, who now lived far away.

While he spoke, I noticed another man,

twenty-five I'd guess, who smiled at me,

then turned to show his bubble butt, the kind

that begs to be pricked so you can see just how

it would explode with pleasure. He told his sons

what he was up to, and one -- the one who lived

in San Francisco -- confessed that, like his dad,

he, too, was "a little gay," but later wed.

As for the other one ... The bubble butt

clenched tight and then released his cheeks; they flexed

again and again like a pulsing sea anemone...

The brother? What of him? I made a vexed

attempt to retrieve my mind, which had gone adrift.

Well, he was much too busy to listen and put

the news away like an unwanted gift

he'd unwrap someday when he had time for it.

At last he said, "I must be boring you."

O those words stung! Callous and rude,

I'd been unbearably distracted

by an ass that had, alas, since left the room.

Forgive me, I should have known better

than let mere youth steer me blind,

for age must always go first, with beauty,

(if it comes at all) following close behind.

...

Today's book of poetry can't even begin to tell you how much we admire the chapbooks produced by A Midsummer Night's Press.  These perfect-bound little pistols are pocket sized dynamos.  And David Bergman's Fortunate Light punches way above its weight.  This beautiful, tiny, little book is a heavy-weight champ and as tender as your favourite lover.

David Bergman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Bergman is the author of three previous books of poetry, Heroic Measures, The Care and Treatment of Pain and Cracking the Code, which won the George Elliston Prize. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Republic, Poetry, The Yale Review, among many other journals. He is poetry editor of The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. He is winner of the Lambda Literary Prize as the editor of Men on Men 2000. He has published two studies, The Violet Hour: The Violet Quill and the Making of Gay Culture and Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-Representation in American Literature, which was selected as an Outstanding Book of the year by Choice and the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights. He is the editor most recently of Gay American Autobiography. With Katia Sainson, he translated the Selected Poems of Jean Sénac. Educated at Kenyon College and The Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a Ph.D., he is a professor of English at Towson University. He lives in Baltimore with his partner of many years, John Lessner.

David Bergman

 Smartish Pace poetry reading at Fraizer's, Baltimore, MD on Feb. 27, 2009. AWP fundraiser organized by the wonderful 2009 AWP President Ron Tanner.

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

This Life Now - Michael Broder (A Midsummer Night's Press)

Today's book of poetry:
This Life Now.  Michael Broder.  A Midsummer Night's Press.  Body Language 12.  New York, New York.  2014.

When you wet the bed first
it is warm then it gets cold.
                             -James Joyce


The Body Language series of books "are devoted to texts exploring questions of gender and identity."

The poems in Michael Broder's This Life Now have a quiet elegance to them, like whispers in a lover's ear, yet they arrive with full volume, resonate with energy.

These are poems about a young boy's first knowing, dangerous and tense teen travails, the horrible plague.  Mostly these very touching, searching poems are excellent vignettes about love, desire and coming to an understanding of one's own sexual exploration and expression.

Words and Things

Near the end we walked along the beach;

                   you said we felt disconnected,

          like a sentence with no conjunctions.

Once we had shared--

                   razors, toothbrush, a blanket,

          like sea and air share the horizon,

          reflecting, penetrating each other,

each better suited to any given thing,

          like air to birds, sea to fish,

yet both hospitable to rainstorms,

          and each with something unique

to offer sunsets.

Near the end we talked about words, 

          how actions speak louder

          but are generally inadequate

                    to hypotheses

                             and other logical or affective relations

                    whose truth or validity

                             are only apparent over time

                    as in

The pen is mightier than the sword

                                                         or the phrase

            Killing with kindness.

...

Today's book of poetry is at an ignorant crossroads, a self-inflicted dilemma.  Do I talk about Michael Broder and This Life Now as gay text -- or as I'd prefer -- just as good poetry?  I don't want to overemphasize the context -- and I don't want to ignore it.  

Today's book of poetry will listen to any constructive advice in this regard.

This Life Now, for TBOP, is Chet Baker smooth, all west coast cool, terribly handsome.  We loved how Broder cuts through modern culture to find the perfect touch stones like a crush on the Beaver's brother Chip, leaving a particular hue to the cues and curbstones in his wake.

A Brief History

In 1960, by my mother, my father's bread is buttered

         without irony.

Then, the word "luncheonette" was uttered without irony.

Sodium lamps surround our housing project like a stalag.

Home alone, watching Rosemary's Baby, I shuddered

         without irony.

High school girls wonder why Michael won't date them.

In a pizzeria, over a vial of pills, her eyelashes fluttered,

         without irony.

In the lower bunk I ask permission before removing my briefs.

From above, "I love you," stuttered without irony.

...

Broder's keen coming-of-age poems are real beauties.  He navigates all those difficult moments with an adult poets' intelligence and aplomb and yet keeps all the innocent child's guileless magic.  This is no small mechanical feat yet Broder does this sort of thing again and again in this splendid collection.

When Broder turns a corner he takes us with him.  These poems tell the story of coming to consciousness in childhood, from teen horrors and joys, the spurting adolescent to the unrepentant young man who wrote these lovely poems.

You See, The Thing Is,

I've been in love before,
but never like this,
the way I lie, arm around him,
dark outside, can't sleep,
thinking of mother in a hospital bed,
lying awake while dawn comes,
yellow, gray, and slightly stale,
the hundred and eighty
degrees I turn, the away I face,
clock I check as he rolls over,
fast asleep, and catches me.

...

TBOP looks forward to Michael Broder's second book, this is a first class start.

Michael Broder

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Broder (Freeport, New York, 1961) holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Columbia University, an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, and a PhD in Classics from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in BLOOM, Court Green, Columbia Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Classical World, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies This New Breed, My Diva, Divining Divas, Rabbit Ears, and Ancient Obscenities.
He has taught at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College, York College, and the Graduate Center, all of which are campuses of the City University of New York, as well as at Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ) and The University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC).
He lives in Brooklyn with his lawfully wedded spouse, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and numerous cats, both feral and domestic. This Life Now is his first book.

BLURBS

“Michael Broder’s moving and lucid poems have heart, music, audacity—and they give a quiet, lasting pleasure, like an ancient Greek torso reshaped for the space age. This Life Now is full of salt, sex, TV, and other riveting varieties of poised explosiveness, to which his lucky reader blissfully surrenders.”
     —Wayne Koestenbaum

“Dare I confess that this wise and sassy and heartbreaking collection made me scour YouTube for past episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Such are the subtle, ethereal, and playful gifts of Michael Broder’s poems that a reader won’t want to miss any allusion. No matter how bittersweet or fleeting, these poems, which span more than thirty-years of an emerging queer consciousness, chart an unflinching poetics for the missing and unaccounted for. The book makes so many foundational moments and episodes of a thriving culture reappear and cohere, with such grim acceptance and celebration, that it takes our breath away.”
     —Peter Covino

Michael Broder

Cafe Be with guest, poet Michael Broder

video:  Mark McNease

amidsummernightspress.com 

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