Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners

Fugitives

187 Fu­ gi­ tives James Allen Hall My first se­ mes­ ter of col­ lege in a ­ sun-drenched town, half an hour from Day­ tona Beach: I spent all the time I could in the dusty sun­ less ex­ panse of the li­ brary. Maybe I was mar­ tyr­ ing my­ self, but for the first time in my life, I felt like I had ac­ cess to in­ for­ ma­ tion that could save my life. It was dark and cold and I was ut­ terly alone, so why was I ter­ rified and ­ sweaty-handed as I ­ pulled a book ­ called A His­ tory of Homo­ sex­ u­ al­ ity from its sleep­ mates on the shelf ? I took the book ­ quickly, keep­ ing its spine ­ against my body so no one would know what I had­ touched, what had ­ touched me. I ­ walked my fu­ gi­ tive self down the grim­ stairs, down to the grimy base­ ment. My ­ prison was my free­ dom. A year later, I came out to my ­ poetry pro­ fes­ sor. She photo­ cop­ ied the en­ tirety of Mark ­ Doty’s My Alex­ an­ dria and gave it to me, after mak­ ing me prom­ ise to buy the book at some point. I ­ walked ­ quickly back to my room, low­ ered the ­ shades, and read. I’m not ­ ashamed (though per­ haps I­ should be) to tell you I read it first for the sex. ­ That’s the kind of col­ lege boy I was: under the ­ sheets, ­ lights off, think­ ing ­ poetry would get me off. And ­ here’s how Mark Doty de­ scribes sex in “Days of 1981,” one man ser­ vic­ ing the ­ speaker James Allen Hall 188 on the bleach­ ers in an empty sub­ ur­ ban park, and I ­ reached for any­ thing to hold onto, my head ­ thrown back to blue­ black sky ­ rinsed at the rim with blaz­ ing city ­ lights, then down to him: re­ lent­ less, daz­ zling, any­ one. The eros of the oc­ ca­ sion trans­ fixes the ­ speaker into lov­ ing the “blue­ black sky” and the “blaz­ ing city ­ lights,” grad­ u­ at­ ing sex to lit­ eral sen­ su­ al­ ity. ­ Here’s a de­ scrip­ tion of pen­ e­ tra­ tive inter­ course—of hot­ sweaty hairy ­ daddy-on-daddy ac­ tion—from the poem “Li­ lacs in NYC”: You enter me and we are strang­ ers to our­ selves but not to each other, I enter you (strange verb but what else to call it—to pen­ e­ trate to fuck to be in­ side of none of the ac­ counts of the body were ever ­ really use­ ful were they tell the truth none of them), I enter you (strange verb, as if we were each an en­ clo­ sure a shel­ ter, im­ a­ gine ac­ tu­ ally con­ sid­ er­ ing your­ self a tem­ ple) and vi­ o­ let the crush of shad­ ows that warm wrist that ­ deep-hollowed col­ lar ­ socket those ­ salt-lustered li­ lacy shoul­ der ­ blades in all odd shad­ ings of green and dusk . . . bloom­ ing in the field of our shat­ ter. You enter me and it’s ­ Macy’s, Fugitives 189 some avail­ able ver­ sion of in­ fin­ ity; I enter you and I’m the grass, cov­ ered with your shock of pet­ als out of which you rise Mr. April Mr. Splen­ dor I can’t think of an­ other poet who would inter­ pret the ass­ hole as the un­ fold­ ing de­ lights of ­ clothes and home décor and ­ well-lit good cheer of a de­ part­ ment store. I’d never met an “openly gay” poet on the page be­ fore. I ­ didn’t know what to ex­ pect from that mon­ i­ ker. I guess I ­ thought what set me apart from my ­ friends was de­ sire, and that gay poets would write about their­ erotic ex­ is­ tence. As if ­ straight poets don’t. And, if they don’t, maybe they fuck­ ing ­ should. Of ­ course ­ there’s sex in My Alex­ an­ dria, as else­ where in ­ Doty’s work, but it’s de­ scribed so beau­ ti­ fully. It tit­ il­ lated my vo­ cab­ u­ lary. After I read the book again, I am in love with...