Let's hit 22,000 Blog Views

....By the end of January. I know you people can do it. If you need to be entertained while here, I have a poem within the cyberpages at Carnival Magazine. Here is a poem on the lighter side from Dressing Room Poetry as well.

Is It Prose? Is It Poetry?

Actually it's a prose poem up at the Prose Poem Project. In case you are wondering what prose poems are, here's the Wikipedia article on them. If you're still confused, well, then you might be a poet.

A Poem On MLK Day

From the Onion

Here's a poem of mine that was published today at Leaves of Ink. Since it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we can all pretend it's about him, somehow. I mean, in the end, isn't there a little bit of MLK in each and every one of us? My poor understanding of quantum physics says...yes.

Silver and Spinning at Leaves of Ink

New poem is up at Leaves of Ink. Hopefully it will inspire no tears of rage.

Gay Press, Gay Power: A Book Review

Order it here

Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America
Paperback: 468 pages
Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America Paperback: 468 pages Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (November 24, 2012) 
Edited by Tracy Baim 

It makes sense that the history of America’s Gay newspapers is in many ways a microcosm of the history of the community itself in the twentieth century. In an era before blogs, social media, and academic journals friendly to LGBTQ issues, newspapers run by Gays and Lesbians served as one of the first safe spaces to publicly present and discuss Queer issues. Of course there were bars, clubs, and private parties, but newspapers offered a way to take the discourse of the community public and provide a means for recording what was going on for future reference. Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America is a clear beneficiary of this archive. This collection of writings, edited and co-authored by Tracy Baim, tells the story of the Gay Press but inevitably reflects the advances achieved and setbacks felt by the LGBTQ community in America as well. However, it is more than just a presentation of headlines that mirror this experience. It deals with the specific history behind a variety of publications, controversies within their staffs, and the nuts and bolts of making the Gay press work. 

The book is divided into several parts that each deal with an aspect of Gay newspapers. Part One covers their history from the start of the twentieth century up to the present. It begins by covering the challenges of producing newspapers for homosexuals and homophiles in an era of obscenity and sodomy laws and an outright hostile mainstream press. The book demonstrates the need for these newspapers when the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times would refer to Gays and Lesbians as nothing but “perverts” in their pages, if they were mentioned at all. Part One details how the most common expression of homophobia among newspapers in those days was their silence and not overt condemnation.

Part Two is written by men and women who were involved with the Gay press as writers and editors. They discuss issues with funding, discrimination, and the bitter infighting within the publications. One of the strengths of Gay Press, is that it does not shy away from depicting the problems faced by Lesbians on Gay-dominated staffs, GLBTQ people of color in having their issues heard, or the struggle for transgender and transsexual Americans to be recognized by these newspapers. Part Three continues by focusing on individual publications in ten different cities, such as the Philadelphia Gay News and the Washington Blade. Meanwhile, Part Four deals with the business of the Gay press and Part Five focuses on issues raised by the rise of the internet and social media. 

Having all these parts written by different authors about different subject matters is both a strength and a weakness for the collection. It does mean that a wide breadth of materials and the media for different communities among the GLBTQ crowd are covered. The pieces not only deal with racial diversity but also regional diversity as well. A history of the Gay press might be excused for focusing primarily on San Francisco and New York City, but this volume goes beyond expectations and deals with Gay newspapers across the country. In particular, it focuses on Chicago (which makes sense since Tracy Baim co-founded the Windy City Times.) The history of Lesbian papers is well-represented by telling the story of such figures as Lisa Ben who founded Vice Versa, the first Lesbian newspaper in the country. 

This method of division allows for pieces which detail the running of these newspapers and their funding, an aspect often overlooked in consideration of any history on print journalism. Advertising in particular gets a deserving amount of attention in this book and not just because it keeps the Gay press afloat. The growth of companies willing to advertise to in these newspapers is representative of changes in public perception and acceptance of GLBTQ Americans over the course of the past fifty years. Of course, the issues of “pinkwashing” and a lack of advertising featuring Lesbians and Gay people of color are brought up as well. 

However, having so many writers turns the book into a hodgepodge of reviews, essays, memoirs, and predictions about the future of the Gay press. Each section feels more deserving of its own separate books because of these incongruences. There are several downsides to having so many different sections in the book with different authors thrown into the mix. The first is that many details and histories are repeated through the work. Another problem is that an extreme focus on the minutiae of a particular publication can be a drag to get through. Anyone looking for those specifics will be in luck but a reader seeking a general history will find it difficult to get through. A major issue for anybody looking to use the text as a source is a lack of clear citations for many of the passages. In addition, there is little focus on the bisexual press or the bisexual experience within the Gay press. Maybe there was not enough material at the time of compilation for it to warrant inclusion. 

Perhaps the work suffers from the same kind of problems the early Gay Press had, having to be everything for the community in the absence of other publications and other outlets. As Gay Press, Gay Power points out, early newspapers had to serve as a place for news, but also provide opinion pieces, conduct advocacy, produce bar and nightlife guides, showcase a social register, and post various literary offerings. As time went on these separate functions were taken over by other groups, leaving the Gay press with the main task of covering current events from an GLBTQ perspective. Maybe future books will come along and provide a similar function, for instance producing a volume of memoirs from Gay journalists separate from a more formal history of the newspapers they served.

Celebrate the New Year with Experimental Literature

Experiential Experimental Literature to be exact.

The Princess and the Pea

Read a poem of mine up at the Blue Hour. It's about playing dress up.

Well, it looks like the year is closing out. 2012 is about to give way to 2013. Who knows what the year will have in store for me? There are some publications lined up. I have that to look forward to at least. There will be substitution jobs. Real jobs? I don't think they make those for people like me any more.

Talk about the Look of Robot Pity in the Year of the Tiger

Three poems of mine are present in the Barefoot Review. One of them goes all the way back to my senior year poetry class at NYU. We had to take one another's lines and assemble them into a new work. You can probably tell which one of the poems was constructed that way. Look at me Professor Fitterman! I'm making good!

How to Be a Communist...

At this church they preach turning the other cheek to your enemies, giving all your wealth away, and paying taxes without complaining. You'd never hear that nonsense at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion!   

...and other poems of mine are up at Pyrokinection. There are three to be exact. The first one is a cut up formed out of lines taken from here.

The Fireworks Go Out

Read the poem at Randomly Accessed Poetics that commenter bzniditch writes the following about:

"A Commodity culture’s language forcibly commensurate with Ben Nardolilli’s poem in layered pattern of a brandished verse finely cast with a poet’s castaway feel for intonation and wrought in an international need for language."

Title and Deed

This is pretty much how I dress when I 'm a substitute

A new poem of mine is up at the Fat City Review. So you better get yourself over there and have a looksy. Another anthem of exhaustion because variations on a theme are what we all live for.

The Evening Mysteries

This morning I have a new poem to link to and therefore a new poem for everyone to read. It is up at the Rainbow Rose. Read away! It is one of the only places online you will find the phrases "I feel down by the carport" and "beneath all craft." History is being made my dear readers!

Not to Be Confused with a Pushkin Art Nomination

Because really, Vasily Tropinin would win the prize anyway

Proving I'm still good for something, I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry by the swell folks at the Conium Review. Here is the issue my work was in and for proof, read this announcement. Tumblr never lies.

Celebrate the Close of November

...with a poem on decline, the theme of themes to ponder as December approaches. Read "A Promised Mutiny" in the Entroper.

Notes from the South Jersey Underground

SIX NEW POEMS of mine are available for you to read in the latest issue of the South Jersey Underground. My stuff starts on page 28. There are also some pretty pictures to look at along the way as you flip and Sweet Jane by the Velvet Underground may or not be playing in the background.