Homosexuality and The Gay Rights Movement

A Brief Guide to the New York School

The New York School of poetry began around 1960 in New York City and included poets such as John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O'Hara. Heavily influenced by surrealism and modernism, the poetry of the New York School was serious but also ironic, and incorporated an urban sensibility into much of the work.

A second generation of New York School poets arose during the 1960s and included Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, and Joe Brainard. These poets were also influenced by art and their work contained much of the same humour and collaborative spirit. Their scene grew up around downtown New York and was associated with the Poetry Project at St Mark's Church, a poetry organization started in the mid 1960s.

The New York School continues to influence poets writing today. Recently published books such as Daniel Kane's All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s and David Lehman's The Last-Avant Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets are important histories of this poetic movement that still captures readers nearly fifty years later.

Homosexuality and The Gay Rights Movement

The emerging gay movement in the 1960’s played a key role in the work of the New York Poets. Many things about the gay culture, including the way gay people identified themselves, as well as the language used to refer to homosexuality, changed drastically during the time of the New York Movement. Prior to the gay liberation movements and the Stonewall Riots of the late 1960’s, most people did not see homosexuality as an identity, but merely as a sexual deviation. (Reis 199) The new development of this identity and movement heavily influenced the members of the New York School. Many of the major figures in the New York School, including John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara and James Schuyler, were gay.

While the Beat Movement was also tied to the gay rights movement, the New York School wrote more explicitly about it, and the content of their poetry was concerned more with homosexuality than the Beats. Frank O’Hara, recognized as the third overtly gay poet (after Alan Ginsberg and Paul Goodman), wrote several poems that openly discussed homosexuality (Diggory 229). His poem “In the Movies,” is an explicit account of oral sex occuring in a movie theatre,

"I bought a ticket so I could be alone. With the plumes.

With the ushers.

With my own prick.

and with my death written in smoke

outside this theatre where I receive my mail.

Guts? my gut is full of water, like the River Jordan."

(Collected Poems, 206)

Other poets, such as Schuyler, were more covert in their homosexual references. In Schuyler’s poems written to Bob Jordan, a lover, the fact that the addressee is a man is only vaguely hinted at. In Ashbery’s poems many critics have commented on the possible significance of the lack of homosexual content. (Diggory 229)

Even those that were not gay however were looking for an alternative to the mainstream culture. The emerging gay subculture provided the perfect network for the movement to use. One particular subculture that the movement became heavily involved in was known as “camp.” This culture functioned in several different ways. First, it provided a way for the artists and poets of the movement to connect. The Tibor De Nagy Gallery was a famous meeting place for members of the movement. The gallery promoted the exchange and collaboration of poets and artists who were interested in the subculture. The second way camp influenced the movement was in language. There is a particular style of humor and wit associated with camp, and it was used by the poets, both gay and straight. Kenneth Koch, who was not gay, was known for having picked up this style rather well (Diggory 228).

John Ashbery's statement about the Tibor De Nagy Gallery

Frank O'Hara's Poem 'Homosexuality'

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14