Conversations with Gay Writers on Poetry and Desire
November 25, 2013
Interviewing eight contemporary gay male writers, this collection teases out the attachments between personal life and art-making practices in the dynamic world of queer poetry. Hennessy (Outside the Lines: Talking with Contemporary Gay Poets) is of equal measure an astute, studied academic and an enthusiastic fan of the collected writers. His intellect becomes a clever through line, adding cohesion to the diverse voices and philosophies of Edward Field, John Ashbery, Richard Howard, Aaron Shurin, Dennis Cooper, Cyrus Cassels, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Kazim Ali. While those who aren't already fans of these poets might find their interest lagging from time to time, there are enough singular and surprising moments to earn back the reader's attentionâthat incredibly rare occasion of hearing John Ashbery discuss the link between his sexuality and his writing style, for instance, or Wayne Koestenbaum's declaration that writing a particular poem felt like "diving into the wreck, but the drowned vessel was my father's anus." These moments are the strength of the text, allowing insight into the poet's work that evades the dry tedium of much criticism and is instead untethered through the free flow of conversation, favoring further questions rather than reductive answers. In short, Hennessy gives the poets generous space to speak, and in this space the book succeeds. B&w illus.