Tuesday, July 1, 2025

PRIDE

In March of 1972, when I was 29, after my first sexual experience with a man, at a time when by law that was still a crime and by the medical profession still considered a mental disease, I  publicly "came out" as a Gay man and lost friends, extended family members, and eventually my job (teaching at a Catholic women's college!) and in some circles my reputation. And caused a lot of confusion for many folks, including myself.

Because I was still attracted to women too, and in a relationship with my then wife, (see my last book SAY IT AGAIN). I chose to come out as "Gay" rather than "Bi" to express solidarity with Gay comrades by facing the consequences of being openly identified that way. Also, I didn't like the term "bi-sexual" which to me sounded like there were only two kinds of sexual relations and I knew that wasn't true.

I took part in some of the earliest Pride marches and demonstrations, sometimes in a dress or what we called gender-bending garb (lumberjack shirt with clip-on rhinestone earrings e.g.) and took flack not only from homophobes but some people within the Gay Liberation Movement who considered me not authentically gay. Then I got custody of one of my children, a five-year old, and the possibility of losing him because I was identifying as Gay, led me to be more discreet in showing my femme side and eventually let people assume what they would.

But I never stopped being proud of my Gay Liberation activism history or my love of, and place in, the ongoing expansion of who is part of the LGBTQ+ community.   

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

GRATEFUL

couldn't ask for a more insightful understanding of what i intended with this work and  the effort that  went into creating it:

https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/06/jerome-sala-getting-it-right-michael.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawK1S3VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE1SWc0dkZlTHhNbTBFVW81AR6Ml7TM_e2b-u3iKSTQXPFCcpTTkoc9kLRLnUmriq0fSlr0ZLM9xDlS6YZ_WQ_aem_C7Z_F_Y_ppTrCXDIEDdjBw


Saturday, June 7, 2025

THANX

 A BELATED THANX TO ALL WHO SENT ME BIRTHDAY GREETINGS, TRYING TO RESPOND TO EACH INDIVIDUALLY BUT IT MAY TAKE MANY MORE WEEKS OR EVEN MONTHS THUS THIS POST, LOVE YOU ALL

Thursday, May 22, 2025

ALICE NOTLEY R.I.P.


Alice and I met at the U of Iowa in 1967, when she was 21 and me 25, not long out of four years in the military and married to Lee, and Alice would soon be with our mutual friend poet Ted Berrigan. We connected in a deep way and saw a lot of each other throughout the rest of the 1960s and '70s, up until I moved to LA from NYC in '82.

(I ended a poetry anthology I edited in the '70s, NONE OF THE ABOVE, with work by Alice, and opened it with quotes from poems by Lynne Dreyer, Bernadette Mayer, and this one form Alice: "I can't dissipate myself on little star points!" And I mention Alice a lot in the autobiography of my first thirty years, SAY IT AGAIN).

By 1982 Lee was in a coma that lasted six years before she passed, a few years after Ted did. Alice ended up living in Paris, so we rarely saw each other, but when we did I instantly felt that deeply rooted connection. I thought of her often (and kept up with her poetry and growing fame) as she recently wrote to me she thought of me too and kept up with my life through contacts with mutual friends, mostly poets (I had commented on a poem of hers posted by Terence Winch on The Best American Poetry Blog):

"This is Alice writing to thank you for your comment and to say Hello. I think about you and get news of how you are from people like Elinor Nauen and Johnny. It's a long time from Iowa City, where I first met you and Lee, and also Bob Grenier, and The Sullen Art and Ray DiPalma, and heard Bob Creeley read for the first time. And decided to be a poet instead of a prose writer."

Her passing has removed one of the few remaining links to the world we shared in the early years of our friendship. I feel that loss deeply. Condolences to her sons, Anselm and Edmond, and to all her family, friends, and fans. Rest In Poetry, Power, and Peace Alice.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

DOIREANN NI GHRIOFA'S A GHOST IN THE THROAT

 I always said 'poetry saved my life' and what i meant was when i was at my most despondent, reading a poem that I connect with in the often mysterious ways creative arts can personally reach into us, would transform my deep disappointment (with the world or myself) into deep gratitude for that connection.

I rarely get despondent any more, but if i were to be, this new favorite book of mine would be a lifesaver, just for the beauty of the language. Every word seems necessary in the ways only words can. I highly recommend (though everyone's taste is their own) Doireann Ni Ghriofa's A GHOST IN THE THROAT. 


Saturday, May 3, 2025

ANNIVERSARY

On May 3rd, 1957, The BROOKLYN Dodgers moved to LA, and I, about to turn 15, stopped caring about major league baseball, which til then I had cared about deeply.

Friday, April 11, 2025

SIBLINGS

 
Me in the arms of my oldest sibling, Tommy, to our right brother Jimmy who we called Buddy, to our left William, who we called by his middle name, Robert, sisters Joan, and Irene, closest to me in age but still separated by five years during which our brother John was born and died shortly afterward.

This looks like Easter, April 1945, Tommy in the Army Air Corps in a squadron getting ready to join the war in Europe to reinforce the bombing of Berlin but Germany would surrender in a few weeks so he'd never leave the States, while Buddy was about to leave for the Navy and end up in Okinawa when Japan surrendered. 

They're all gone, just me left and still squirming to be let free.