LGBT Pride Month is a month, typically June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride, observed in socially progressive nations around the world.
Thammasat University students interested in reading relevant poetry to celebrate June as LGBT Pride Month might note that among gay writers represented in the TU Library collection is the American poet Frank O’Hara.
The TU Library owns books by and about Frank O’Hara, an art critic who worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art.
O’Hara was inspired by jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting, and contemporary avant-garde art movements.
He also loved the movies, and especially filmstars like the glamorous Lana Turner.
One day when O’Hara learned from a newspaper headline that Lana Turner had collapsed, he wrote a poem that has been posted online:
Poem [“Lana Turner has collapsed!”]
BY FRANK O’HARA
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
Anyone who may wonder why this is an LGBT poem might be invited to consider the half-funny, half-dramatic tone of worship of a screen diva and exploring what it means to be a fan of a Hollywood actress of O’Hara’s time.
Turner’s daughter Cheryl Crane came out as a lesbian to her parents at the age of thirteen, and they remained supportive of her.
Beginning in the 1970s, it was observed by journalist Sally Quinn of “The Washington Post” that Turner had accumulated a following of gay men, similar to her contemporaries Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and others.
One attendee at a 1975 party celebrating her career told Quinn:
“She represents … homosexuals’ fantasies at a certain age in their lives. They identify with her and she’s a survivor. It’s like they’re saying, ‘Let’s go see how she’s survived.'”
Subsequent associations with Turner as a gay icon have centered on her personal struggles and triumphs, as well as her glamorous persona and the perceived camp aesthetics of several of her films.
Scholars such as Susan Sontag noted the camp qualities of such films as “The Prodigal” (1955), a Biblical costume drama in which Turner portrayed a pagan temptress.
A more serious poet was the American lesbian writer Elizabeth Bishop.
The TU Library collection includes a number of books by and about Bishop, considered by some readers to be America’s greatest modern poet.
Bishop wrote about a lost love in a graceful poem that has been posted online:
One Art
BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
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.
Another sad poem about an impossible relationship was created by the British poet A.E. Housman, who was also a classical scholar who was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge.
Housman’s short poem ‘Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all’s over,’ as posted online, is about parting from someone we love, because we know they don’t return our love:
Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all’s over;
I only vex you the more I try.
All’s wrong that ever I’ve done or said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, here’s luck, good-bye.
But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame’s to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I’ll be there.
The African American poet June Jordan identified as bisexual, and this contented poem about love, as posted online, is an example of her writing:
Poem for My Love
BY JUNE JORDAN
How do we come to be here next to each other
in the night
Where are the stars that show us to our love
inevitable
Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness
and the rain
falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh
the black men waiting on the corner for
a womanly mirage
I am amazed by peace
It is this possibility of you
asleep
and breathing in the quiet air
The American lesbian poet Adrienne Rich is apparently not represented in the TU Library collection, but her many books are available to TU Library students through the TU Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.
Here is a love poem by Adrienne Rich, as posted online:
II from Twenty-One Love Poems
I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.
Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other,
you’ve been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed:
our friend the poet comes into my room
where I’ve been writing for days,
drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,
and I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake. You’ve kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone…
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down the
upbreathing air.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)