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Activist Poetry #2: Gay Rights Poetry
May. 29th, 2012 04:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
razeAs I will be away all day today, I'm posting this one early - hope you don't feel too inundated, folks!
The Gay Rights community is well known for using a broad scope of creative media - including art, poetry, music, plays, etc. - to convey the struggles of the homosexual community. Considered by many to be the civil rights struggle of our day and age, the issue of gay rights has been at the forefront of US policy making in recent years, marked by victories and defeats in the areas of gay marriage, adoption, workers' rights, health care, and more.
Several noteworthy gay poets are currently making big waves in the modern "poetry Renaissance," and today's poem comes from slam poet Andrea Gibson, winner of the Women's World Poetry Slam and self-described queer activist. She has toured universities and venues across the United States delivering hard-hitting poems on a wide range of human rights issues, her poems making it as far as Utah's conservative state legislature (you can imagine the scandal when the poet's identity was revealed in this context!).
"I Do" was written in response to California's Prop 8 and will be presented today in the form of a video, as Gibson's poetry is arguably best appreciated performed. Text is below; I did not post the transcript because I do not know if it falls within the guidelines of the community's posting.
Transcript or, look into her published works, The Madness Vase and Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns available at andreagibson.com
Noteworthy Related Reading
Does Your House Have Lions? by Sonia Sanchez, 1998 (book/poem). Written as an epic poem, this touching book details the life of Sanchez's homosexual brother, who died of AIDs, and serves as an eye-opening experience about what it is to be gay and black in America.
Mere Baba by Iftikhar Nasim (poem). Written by Urdu's first openly gay poet, this short but powerful poem (presented here in multiple languages for your viewing pleasure) brings to light the emotional anguish of asking questions about one's sexuality. Nasim is considered a highly significant figure to the Indian and Pakistani gay rights community, an activist voice in a culture where open homosexuality is often met with brutal violence.
If you have any gay rights poetry you'd like to share, or comments on the reads (and listens) shared today, please post in the comments!
The Gay Rights community is well known for using a broad scope of creative media - including art, poetry, music, plays, etc. - to convey the struggles of the homosexual community. Considered by many to be the civil rights struggle of our day and age, the issue of gay rights has been at the forefront of US policy making in recent years, marked by victories and defeats in the areas of gay marriage, adoption, workers' rights, health care, and more.
Several noteworthy gay poets are currently making big waves in the modern "poetry Renaissance," and today's poem comes from slam poet Andrea Gibson, winner of the Women's World Poetry Slam and self-described queer activist. She has toured universities and venues across the United States delivering hard-hitting poems on a wide range of human rights issues, her poems making it as far as Utah's conservative state legislature (you can imagine the scandal when the poet's identity was revealed in this context!).
"I Do" was written in response to California's Prop 8 and will be presented today in the form of a video, as Gibson's poetry is arguably best appreciated performed. Text is below; I did not post the transcript because I do not know if it falls within the guidelines of the community's posting.
Transcript or, look into her published works, The Madness Vase and Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns available at andreagibson.com
Noteworthy Related Reading
Does Your House Have Lions? by Sonia Sanchez, 1998 (book/poem). Written as an epic poem, this touching book details the life of Sanchez's homosexual brother, who died of AIDs, and serves as an eye-opening experience about what it is to be gay and black in America.
Mere Baba by Iftikhar Nasim (poem). Written by Urdu's first openly gay poet, this short but powerful poem (presented here in multiple languages for your viewing pleasure) brings to light the emotional anguish of asking questions about one's sexuality. Nasim is considered a highly significant figure to the Indian and Pakistani gay rights community, an activist voice in a culture where open homosexuality is often met with brutal violence.
If you have any gay rights poetry you'd like to share, or comments on the reads (and listens) shared today, please post in the comments!
