Books

Lambda Literary Award-winning writer Nina Revoyr – Photo: Courtesy

Poetic license

What better way to observe National Poetry Month in April than to get lost in the pages of “The Best Of It: New and Selected Poems” (Grove Press, 2010, $24) by out poet Kay Ryan, who was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010?

If you prefer to have your poetry read to you, there’s “Words For You: The Greatest Poems. The Finest Voices. Glorious Music.” (Mighty Village/Universal), a 22-track CD featuring the work of queer poets such as Langston Hughes, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, alongside Shakespeare, Dickinson, Poe and Longfellow, read by Helena Bonham Carter, Terence Stamp, Meryl Streep, Garrison Keillor and others.

Justin Spring reads at 4 p.m. Nov. 30 at The Pyle Center (Room 313) on the UWM campus, 702 Langdon St., in Madison.

“Do I contradict myself?” poet Walt Whitman asked in “Song of Myself.”

The cover of John Waters’ “Role Models” from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Decades ago now, my history-teaching dad gave me a yellowed copy of John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” with the instruction, “Read.”

Handmade Love

Poetry in motion

National Poetry Month (April) has come and gone, but it left us with plenty to ponder and enjoy. Queer poets led the way with several releases of note.

The late gay poet Jame Schuyler’s “Other Flowers: Uncollected Poems” (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2010), edited by James Meetze and Simon Pettet, arrives almost 20 years after his passing and nearly 30 years after he received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Gay author Wade Rouse reads from his new book “It’s All Relative: Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine” at 7 p.m., Feb. 8, at Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer in Milwaukee. – Photo: Courtesy

LGBT fiction

“The Cruel Ever After” (Minotaur, 2011) is award-winning lesbian mystery writer Ellen Hart’s latest Jane Lawless Mystery featuring sleuthing Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless.

The late lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, author of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and others, is feted in “The Highsmith Reader” (Norton, 2010), featuring an introduction by Joan Schenkar and including the novels “Strangers On A Train” (which became a Hitchcock film), “The Price of Salt,” as well as seven early stories and six later ones.

Will Fellows will read from “Gay Bar: The Fabulous, True Story of a Daring Woman and Her Boys in the 1950s” at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 at Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee.

“I own a homosexual bar,” Helen Branson declared. “In the nomenclature of the homosexual, it is called a Gay Bar.”

Grant Wood: a Life

You may not know Grant Wood, but you’re undoubtedly familiar with the artist’s most famous work, “American Gothic,” a somber painting that depicts a dowdy woman and a man holding a pitchfork, standing in front of a small white house. The work has been widely reproduced and has inspired many parodies.

Justin Spring reads excerpts from “Secret Historian: The life and times of Samuel Steward, professor, tattoo artist, and sexual renegade,” at 6 p.m., Thurs., Oct. 14, at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center. Call 414-383-3727.

LGBT fiction

• Described as a “fiery call to arms,” “Krakow Melt” (Arsenal Pulp, 2010) by Daniel Allen is the story of two pyromaniacs fighting homophobia in 2005 Poland.
• On the other end of the temperature spectrum, “Wicked” author Gregory Maguire’s Christmas-set “The Next Queen of Heaven” (Harper, 2010) features the ancient religious order the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mysteries teaming up with a gay singing group.