Year in Review: Asleep at the Wheel | Out Magazine

Year in Review: Asleep at the Wheel | Out Magazine

Bay Area Issue of LOCUSPOINT is finally Out!

I'm so excited to announce the launch of the Bay Area issue of LOCUSPOINT, a journal founded by Charles Jensen of Lethe Press, who invited me to be guest editor.

This issue features new and exciting work from Brenda Hillman, Dan Bellm, Brian Teare, Randall Mann, Michael Montlack, Kevin Simmonds, Catharine Clark-Sayles, and many, many more!

Brenda Hillman

Kevin Simmonds

LOCUSPOINT is a poetry journal whose mission is to spotlight different regions of the country in each issue in order to explore the rich synergism and magic that occurs in literary communities. 

Here is an excerpt from my introductory essay:

"...By 1955, the San Francisco Renaissance was in full flower. Poets Kenneth Rexroth and Madeline Gleason were busy ringleading a community of Beat and avant-garde poets that included Diane Di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Denise Levertov, Kenneth Patchen, Phillip Whalen, Dick McBride, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and for a short time, Jack Kerouac..."

Click HERE to read the Bay Area issue of LOCUSPOINT. 

A Chip off the Old Block

Note to my friends: Here's a gift 
I don't want for my birthday next year...

Courtesy So Much Puns.

Susan Sontag Is a Bear!

by Annie Liebowitz

I found this image at the amazing celebrity photo blog Life in Pics.

If you you love Susan Sontag as much as I do (more now, of course!), here's an article about her I wrote for Lambda Literary.

"The Golden Hour" Wins AQLF Broadside Award!

I'm thrilled to announce that my poem "The Golden Hour" has been selected by judge Mark Doty as winner of the Atlanta Queer Lit Broadside Contest!  Here is what Doty said about the poem:

"This beautiful poem evokes a city landscape lit up with the possibility of new love. But it's also tense with the speaker's awareness that this hope may never be realized. In this way 'The Golden Hour' captures how love and desire lead us forward, but can also hold us hostage."

Here is more information from the festival website:

"The winner of the 2011 AQLF Broadside Contest chosen by poet Mark Doty is Brent Calderwood. His limited edition, signed broadside will be for sale during the festival. We are excited that Calderwood will be joining us in Atlanta to read his winning poem during the Keynote Addresses on Friday, June 24, 7:30 p.m. at the Decatur Library. See the full schedule of events at this link."

Friday, June 24, 7:30 p.m.

Keynote Address at Decatur Public Library

Host: Franklin Abbott

Keynotes: Bryan Borland and Theresa Davis

Broadside Contest winner Brent Calderwood

Out of Necessity: A Lit Event this Sunday at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

The brilliant African-American poet/activist/novelist Audre Lorde once said: "We write because we must." This has guided my own writing ever since I heard it, when I was 17, the year she died.

This Sunday's event, part of the National Queer Arts Festival—a monthlong powerhouse of cultural innovation that descends on The City every June—promises similar insights and inspiration for writers seeking community and purpose, and also for anyone with a heart..

Out of Necessity features award-winning and emerging poets: REGIE CABICO, CHERYL CLARKE, ACHY OBEJAS, VANESSA HUANG, SUZANNE DEL MAZO, NAJVA SOL; moderated by Camille Dungy, curated by Cole Krawitz and Arisa White. If you haven't heard of all these people, look them up, or better yet, go! This is the real thing, folks. 

Sunday, June 5 · 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
Tickets: $12-20 sliding scale (advance tickets recommended)
For more info: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/174170

Want more? Regie Cabico and Achy Obejas will be leading follow-up workshops for writers to develop their skills in a more focused, intimate environment. I can't wait!! 

 June 4, 12-3pm: "Conflict in Fiction" with Achy Obejas: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100663470028502
June 5, 12-3pm: "Verbal Fire" with Regie Cabico: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125212524225742

"The Lily's Revenge"

Taylor Mac Turns Nostalgia on its Head

In the first of its five (!) acts, an actor—I can't remember if it was the lesbian academic hourglass, the feminist theorist bridesmaid, or the human theater curtain—says that nostalgia is dangerous, hinging as it does on a past that exists only in our minds. Or something like that. After four-and-a-half hours of creator and star Taylor Mac's brilliant, bawdy, psychedelic dialogue, I really can't remember.

Whether or not that was the point, it doesn't matter—"The Lily's Revenge" doesn't attempt to shove an arc or epiphany down your throat (unless you ask for it). Instead, it throws out thousands of bon mots, barbs, and zingers, and what sticks will depend entirely on your particular brand of static cling.

For me, that early comment about nostalgia was particularly salient, and ironic: The joy of the show for me is that it gives me a glimpse of the loopy energy and unselfconscious artistic freedom that I imagine was the backbone of the 70s art and music scene in San Francisco, embodied by everything from The Cockettes and Tales of the City to Harvey Milk's theatrical electoral campaigns.

"The Lily's Revenge" seems to me to be suffused with a kind of vicarious nostalgia—but at the same time shows that such energy and shimmering brilliance is still very much alive.

 Presented by Magic Theatre

Where: Building D, Fort Mason, Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street, San Francisco

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays; closes May 22

Tickets: $30 to $75

Contact: (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org