National Poetry Month: Atlanta Queer Literary Festival

AQLF will host a day of poetry readings today, Saturday, April 20, to mark National Poetry Month at the Decatur Library in association with Georgia Center for the Book. 

The readings are free and open to the public. The library is located at 215 Sycamore Street in Downtown. Ample free parking in the deck and less than a block from the Decatur MARTA station. The names of poets linked in blue have been featured in Bellemeade Books. 

For more information on today's poets and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com. The reading schedule:


10 to 11 a.m.: Franklin Abbott, Glenda Corwin, Stephen Zeitz, Alice Teeter, Debra Hiers.

11 a.m. to noon: Patrick Morgan, Harold Lefall, Cleo Creech, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, Lisa Nanette Allender.  

Noon to 1:10 p.m.: Lunch break

1:10 p.m.: Group photo 

1:20 to 2 p.m.: Mose Hardin, Sondra Briggs, Young Hughley, Antron-Reshaud Olukayode.

2 to 3 p.m.: M. Charlene Ball, Libby Ware, Sharon J. Sanders, Megan Volpert, Karen G, Gabe Moses.

3 to 4 p.m.: Iyana, Lynne Huffler, Rico Revels, Antoine Norwood, Don Perryman, Roger Bailey.

4 to 5 p.m.: Elliott Mackle, mariana mcdonald, Jef Blocker, Michael Tod Edgerton



The AQLF was created by Franklin Abbott, a radical faery, profeminist activist, and poet whose work spans several decades. As a pro-feminist he has published three anthologies on men and gender: New Men, New Minds: Breaking Male Tradition, Boyhood: Growing up Male, and  Men and Intimacy: Personal Accounts of the Dillemas of Modern Male Sexuality. He also published two books of poetry, Mortal Love and Pink Zinnia, and founded the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival.

National Poetry Month: Dustin Brookshire

Dustin Brookshire

"First AIDS Test"
(Dustin Brookshire)


I was 19 when I had my first
AIDS test; no longer a virgin or
why else would we have
made that 15 minute drive
that seemed like 15 hours
to the testing center.
I had to go because of you,
but I can't blame you alone--
no, I was stupid, I let you
slide into me uncovered.
I let you enter me,
and the foolish part of
my brain gagged the sensible
part before it could say,
'This shouldn't happened.'
The foolish part of my brain
gagged and tied the sensible
part and quietly tucked her
away out of sight so he
could be heard and say,
'Let's get this started.'
Every time you entered me
I felt loved.
Every time you entered me
I trusted you more.
I craved you; you were my first.
And it was after six months
of our love making,
well, my love making
your lust indulging,
that I found out you shared
your bed with others---
so many others.
I shuddered.
I cried.
I screamed at God,
but it wasn't His fault.
It was yours;
it was mine.
And that's when I made
you take me to get the test.
I made you pay for it.
I refused to let you touch me after;
I refused to listen to your I'm sorries.
I was trying to find a safe world
where every billboard read NEGATIVE.
I was having a dream with a beautiful song
and everyone singing sang NEGATIVE.
For two weeks I waited.
Two weeks of prayers, promises, and
thoughts of what I'd do to you
if my life took a viral change.
But in the end, it came out negative---
I was born to live again.

Dustin Brookshire will be reading Saturday at the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. "First AIDS Test" was published online at SubtleTea. His 2012 book of poems, To the One Who Raped Me, is published by Sibling Rivalry Press.

The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival reading on April 20 features the poet as well as other LGBT poets and writers, including Glenda Corwin, Anthony Antoine, Harold Lefall, Collin Kelley, Alice Teeter, Mose Hardin, Young Hughley, Sharon J. Sanders, Gabe Moses, Iyana, Megan A. Volpert, Antron Rechaud, Lynne Huffer, and Jef Blocker. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur (GA) Library auditorium; for more information, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com

National Poetry Month: Alice Teeter

Alice Teeter

Dream 1: My mother writes poetry…

(Alice Teeter)

My mother writes poetry I've never seen.
She writes in English and publishes only in Chinese journals.
For years I did not know she even wrote poetry.
Now I cannot find it.
The journals are obscure.
Thin, flimsy paper. The ink shows through from the other side.
Most of the journal is in Chinese.
Here and there will be the poems of my mother
and poems by other unknown poets.
The print is in two colors--red and black
The poem titles are in red and the poems themselves print black.
I am amazed to be reading the poems of my mother.
I did not know she wrote poetry.
Most of her poems are lost to me.

Sometimes when I find one of those small Chinese party umbrellas,
I unroll the paper that makes up the shaft and look for her poems.
I have to be very careful to unroll it in one piece,
spread it out on a clean, flat surface, check it back and front.
When I am lucky I find a poem
and read the words of my mother's heart,
scattered among the hieroglyphs of another language,
printed in a country I have never seen.

ALICE TEETER will be reading at this weekend's Atlanta Queer Literary Festival event Saturday night in Atlanta. Her first book, 20 Class A, was published in 1975. She is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for artists doing community-based work in the Southeast. She is a also a member of the Artist Conference Network, a national coaching community for people doing creative work. Her recent collections are String Theory (2008) and When It Happens to You (2009), from which "Dream 1: My mother writes poetry" is taken. These and other collections are available through her website.

The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival reading on April 20 features the poet as well as other LGBT poets and writers, including Glenda Corwin, Anthony Antoine, Harold Lefall, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, Mose Hardin, Young Hughley, Sharon J. Sanders, Gabe Moses, Iyana, Megan A. Volpert, Antron Rechaud, Lynne Huffer, and Jef Blocker. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur (GA) Library auditorium; for more information, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com

National Poetry Month: Anthony Antoine

Anthony Antoine

"Curiosity and the Hennessy" (Anthony Antoine)

You keep calling me and always knocking on

my door

Though you say you’re not down so what you

keep knocking for

And you say there’s certain things you just won’t do

But behind closed doors oh if they only knew

Bridge

You say to let you in, you wanna work it out

I’ll let you in if you shake it all about

I can be that kind of guy, don’t even know why

But I’ll let you justify your actions with a lie

What’s up between you and me

Is a secret that I can keep

Call it whatever you please

Curiosity and the Hennessy

But we both know it’s a lie

You were curious you can’t deny

And that’s a dangerous mix with me

Curiosity and the Hennessy

Here you go again sweatin’ me outside my door

How can you not be down when you keep coming

back for more

Is it that you think your sins are forgiven by the dark

of night

Or is it just that good to you or that I do it right, hit it

right for you

You say to let you in, you wanna work it out

I’ll let you in if you shake it all about

I can be that kind of guy, don’t even know why

But I’ll let you justify your actions with a lie

We do the hokey pokey

Though you say that you’re not down

We do the hokey pokey

You done got yourself turned out

Another “DL” love that blames it on the buzz

I guess that’s just what its all about

"Curiosity and the Hennessy" appears on the 2009 album Closets on Fire and was written and performed by Anthony Antoine. Antoine is a self-proclaimed child of the eighties and eighties music, who began his music career after a move to London at the age of seventeen. In England he released What’s Goin’ Down on ZYX Records and the jazz influenced Under Your Spell, with Ronny Jordan, on Island Records.  “I realize now that if I had achieved the level of success that I wanted in London, I would probably be a very closeted and unhappy person today.  That level of success, regardless of any amount of money I could have made would have prevented me from coming to terms with my true self, the single most profound “self-work” that fuels my happiness today.”  Antoine also completes the trio The Adodi Muse, A Gay Negro Ensemble: a traveling poetry performance group combining poetry, music and performance.  Activist Freak: The Sex & Social Justice Mixtape (2008) is his ninth project, which he describes as “the perfect mix of two strong energies within me; activism and freak."

The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival will host a community reading April 20 featuring the poet as well as other LGBT poets and writers, including Glenda Corwin, Alice Teeter, Harold Lefall, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, Mose Hardin, Young Hughley, Sharon J. Sanders, Gabe Moses, Iyana, Megan A. Volpert, Antron Rechaud, Lynne Huffer, and Jef Blocker. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur (GA) Library auditorium; for more information, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com

  

National Poetry Month: Megan A. Volpert

"poncho/kimono"

(Megan A. Volpert)

what mexico has in common with china

the sun seems always to prefer rising

advantage is in the length of her eyelashes

mechanizing bobble wings for wooden butterflies

sea in sea out sea in sea glasses

a lobster's commodity is not at all about texture

what butterfly has in common with lobster

the sea seems always to rise preferably

eyelashes are the length of her commodity

bobble wings mechanizing for wooden mexico

sun up sun down sun up sun glasses

a texture is not about china at all

MEGAN A. VOLPERT will read on Saturday, April 20 as part of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. As a performance poet known as Dr. Madelyn Hatter, Volpert "prefers making art in response to art, and never drinks coffee." Sonics in Warholia, a collection of love letters and hate mail addressing the mysteries of one of the 20th Century's most artful dodgers, is her fourth collection of poems (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011).  She is currently editing This assignment is so gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching, to be published in August.

The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival will host a community reading April 20 featuring the poet as well as other LGBT poets and writers, including Glenda Corwin, Alice Teeter, Harold Lefall, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, Mose Hardin, Young Hughley, Sharon J. Sanders, Gabe Moses, Iyana, Anthony Antoine, Antron Rechaud, Lynne Huffer, and Jef Blocker. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur (GA) Library auditorium; for more information, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com

National Poetry Month: Gabe Moses

Gabe Moses

"How to Make love to a Trans Person"
(Gabe Moses)


Forget the images you've learned to attach
To words like cock and clit,
Chest and breasts.
Break those words open
Like a paramedic cracking ribs
To pump blood through a failing heart.
Push your hands inside.
Get them messy.
Scratch new definitions on the bones.

Get rid of the old words altogether.
Make up new words.
Call it a click or a ditto.
Call it the sound he makes
When you brush your hand against it through his jeans,
When you can hear his heart knocking on the back of his teeth
And every cell in his body is breathing.
Make the arch of her back a language
Name the hollows of each of her vertebrae
When they catch pools of sweat
Like rainwater in a row of paper cups
Align your teeth with this alphabet of her spine
So every word is weighted with the salt of her.

When you peel layers of clothing from his skin
Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient
Even though it's highly likely that you are.
Do not ask if she's "had the surgery."
Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt
If you are being offered a body
That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel
A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies
That come with some assembly required
Whatever you do,
Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape
Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
Looks almost natural.

If she offers you breastbone
Aching to carve soft fruit from its branches
Though there may be more tissue in the lining of her bra
Than the flesh that rises to meet itLet her ripen in your hands.
Imagine if she'd lost those swells to cancer,
Diabetes,
A car accident instead of an accident of genetics
Would you think of her as less a woman then?
Then think of her as no less one now.

If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of muscle
Reaching toward you when you kiss him
Like it wants to go deep enough inside you
To scratch his name on the bottom of your heart
Hold it as if it can-
In your hand, in your mouth
Inside the nest of your pelvic bones.
Though his skin may hardly do more than brush yours,
You will feel him deeper than you think.

Realize that bodies are only a fraction of who we are
They're just oddly-shaped vessels for hearts
And honestly, they can barely contain us
We strain at their seams with every breath we take
We are all pulse and sweat,
Tissue and nerve ending
We are programmed to grope and fumble until we get it right.
Bodies have been learning each other forever.
It's what bodies do.
They are grab bags of parts
And half the fun is figuring out
All the different ways we can fit them together;
All the different uses for hipbones and hands,
Tongues and teeth;
All the ways to car-crash our bodies beautiful.
But we could never forget how to use our hearts
Even if we tried.
That's the important part.
Don't worry about the bodies.
They've got this.



"How to Make Love to a Trans Person" by Gabe Moses appeared online at Genderqueer Chicago. The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival will host a community reading April 20 featuring the poet as well as other LGBT poets and writers, including Glenda Corwin, Alice Teeter, Harold Lefall, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, Mose Hardin, Young Hughley, Sharon J. Sanders, Megan Volpert, Iyana, Anthony Antoine, Antron Rechaud, Lynne Huffer, and Jef Blocker. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur (GA) Library auditorium; for more information, visit www.atlqueerlitfest.com

National Poetry Month: Kathy Acker

from the novel Florida
(Kathy Acker)

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.
When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

You want to know the story of this song
It’s about a woman who loves to go wrong.
She gets contented like a big fat cat
Only when she’s lying flat on her back.

Well, this woman fell in love with a man
Just like some women unfortunately can.
This man had nuts but was nuts in the head
He refused to take this hot babe to bed.

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.
When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

He told her he loved her: he told her he’d give
Anything to her so she’d continue to live.
He’s buy her minks and he’d buy her pearls
He just wouldn’t give her cunt a swirl.
Too many women were pursuing him
And he was fucking too many girls.

So she sang him this sad song
About how the world was always wrong:
DIE IF I DO, DIE IF I DON’T
DIE IF I WRITE, DIE IF I DON’T
DIE IF I FALL IN LOVE AND DIE IF I WON’T

He didn’t give a shit, he didn’t care.
She shouted to the cold winter air;
She slashed her wrists; she shaved her head:
She refused to eat so she’d almost drop dead.

He didn’t run to her, he told her he
Was sick of people and their needs.
All he wanted to do was sit alone
In his country house by his telephone.

Baby don’t give, baby don’t get.
When it’s cold, baby gets wet.
When baby gets wet, baby gets weak.
Baby don’t find, baby don’t seek.

So listen girls, do what you can
To find a horny loving man.
Give him all you’ve got to give,
Give him more so you can live.


"Baby don't give baby don't get" by Kathy Acker appeared in her novel Florida. Acker studied poetry during the 1960s under Jerome Rothenberg before turning to novel writing.  From the introduction to Young Lust  (1988): "I came out of the poetry world of America. Specifically, I was taught by the second generation of the Black Mountain poets and by Jackson MacLow who was a crossover between that group and Fluxus. Among the many lessons I had learned by the time I was in my early twenties was a practical one: poets never make money and are, as both Rimbaud and Patti Smith said, the white niggers of this earth."