Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride

by Andrea Jenkins (Editor), Lisa Marie Brimmer (Editor)

Overview

Since its beginnings in 1993, the Queer Voices reading series has featured both emerging and established Minnesota-based writers of the LGBTQIA+ community. With a track record of more than twenty years, the series has become a national model and one of Minnesota's most important literary institutions. It is reputed to be the longest-running curated queer reading series in the country.
In this volume, series curators John Medeiros and Andrea Jenkins and facilitator Lisa Marie Brimmer present the finest poetry, fiction, and nonfiction pieces by the presenters. Their work, generated and performed in a powerful space of understanding, explores the material of life without internal or external censorship. Living, loving, working, learning, playing, reflecting, knowing, inventing, and being—these magnificent queer voices affirm the importance of civil literacy and the power of vulnerability.
Contributors: Cole Bauer, Ryan Berg, Stephani Maari Booker, Lisa Marie Brimmer, Kimberly Brown, Nate Cannon, Anthony Ceballos, Stephanie Chrismon, James Cihlar, Venus de Mars, Jay Eisenberg, Gary Eldon Peter , Kelly Frankenberg, Ben French, Julie Gard, Christina Glendenning, Rachel Gold, Molly Beth Griffin, CM Harris, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, Andrea Jenkins, Kristin Johnso, Michael Kiesow Moore , Bronson Lemer, Raymond Luczak, Catherine Lundoff, Josina Manu, John Medeiros, Nasreen Mohamed, Ahmad Qais Munhazim, Janauda Petrus, Trina Porte, Karolyn Redoute, William Reichard, Katie Robinson, Dua Saleh, Lucas Scheelk, Erin Sharkey, Nicole Smith, Christine Stark, Vanessa Taylor, Bradford Tice, Ann Tweedy, Morgan Grayce Willow, S. Yarberry, Ariel Zitny

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681341408
Publisher:	Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date:	05/01/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	795 KB

About the Author

Andrea Jenkins, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, is a writer, performance artist, poet, and transgender activist.
John Medeiros is a writer and immigration attorney living in Minneapolis.
Lisa Marie Brimmer is a writer, performance artist, and cultural strategist living in Minneapolis.

Read an Excerpt

From “Wearing Bifocals” by Elizabeth Jarret Andrew The year was 1992. I was twenty-two, standing just inside the door of my first apartment, and suddenly the glass box of others’ assumptions, which I’d unknowingly taken on as my own, shattered. I stood there sobbing, gasping for breath. To move anywhere meant stepping on shards. I wept for all the years I’d misunderstood myself, cramming the breadth of my experience into a small and cramped story. I wept because the name that best described me was associated with many things I was not—promiscuous, wishy-washy, someone who might don a dildo to march in the Pride Parade. I wept for the very ugliness and inaccuracy of the word, the initial “bi” hacking at “sex” with its unnecessary overemphasis, the “ual” pointing an accusatory finger. I wept because I knew society, and my parents especially, would not like this new identity.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew Wearing Bifocals Cole Bauer Lipstick Elephants Rochester Ryan Berg Drown Stephani Maari Booker Mango Wavelengths Lisa Brimmer i go on Kimberly J. Brown Twirl, Untwirl Nate Cannon The Invisible Man Anthony Ceballos Ink Flow Sweetest Nothing Stephanie Chrismon Let the Church Say Amen Ms. Robinson James Cihlar Double Indemnity Melodrama The Furies Venus de Mars Kite Late Night Jay Eisenberg Entomologist Granite Falls, Minnesota Kelly Frankenberg Intent to Love Ben French EMDR Julie Gard Oil Change in Morehead, Kentucky Air Waves Ascent This Summer Twin Ports Christina Glendenning To Love a Woman Rachel Gold Kissing Kate Bornstein Molly Beth Griffin The Exact One I Wanted CM Harris Defender Andrea Jenkins TK Kristin Johnson A Thousand Reasons Why Bridges and Branches Bronson Lemer Chameleon Boy Raymond Luczak Molly The First Musk Catherine Lundoff Strange, But Not a Stranger Josina Manu Maltzman On the Level John Medeiros Losing Dylan Nasreen Mohamed Skipping Stones Michael Kiesow Moore The Violets The Day I Recognized that the Country Turned Against Me, Again Ahmad Qais Munhazim A Letter from Exile Tonight the Subject is Love Gary Eldon Peter More Than a Feeling (an excerpt) Junauda Petrus TK Trina Porte Elegy Between Middle Age and Death Not their real names William Reichard Midwest Landscape: The First Man Perfect President Fabulous The Monster Addresses His Maker on the Night of His Nuptials katie robinson all of this is part of it (an excerpt) The Biggest Fish I Follow Follow Ghosts Dua Saleh Displaced Ancestry Oh Doctor, Who Art in Heaven Lucas Scheelk Containers Choking on the Ashes of Decomposing Depressive Episodes Erin Sharkey Grapefruit Rodented Away Christine Stark The Bovine Babes Vanessa Taylor salat al kusoof Bradford Tice The Dom Poem The Sub Poem Ann Tweedy Rental Property Storms Anatomy of a Name An Instant Morgan Grayce Willow On My Way to John Berryman I Discover Stephanie Brown The Way It Is I Raise My Eyes to Fred & Ginger S. Yarberry Where do your hands go when we sleep? Ariel Zitny Morning Prayer What is a Queer in Isolation?