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Cindy Hochman: "Self-Portrait in a Concave Knife"
2011-12-27 20:37:00
When the Big C meets the Big D, all you can do is laugh. At least, that's where poet Cindy Hochman's survival instinct takes her. Packed with more puns than a Snickers bar has peanuts, her chapbook The Carcinogenic Bride (Thin Air Media Press, 2011) brings energetic wit to bear on those modern monsters, breast cancer and divorce. She kindly shares a sample poem below. To order a copy ($5.00), email Cindy at poet2680@aol.com. Hat tip to Gently Read Literature for bringing this book to my attention. Self-Portrait in a Concave Knife Here comes the carcinogenic bride! Here comes the survivor-in-chief! Wanna see my balance sheet? This will be my Checkers Speech! There goes my stale mate We once lived in an altared state He cleaned my slate, I cleaned his plate Here is love in fission body in remission, missionary position Here is my inner elf,      my quirky self, my non-existent wealth,      in sickness and in he...
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Reiter's Block Year in Review, Part 2: Best Fiction
2011-12-27 02:13:00
For me, there are two things that take a good story to the next level of greatness: fully human characterization, and a connection to wider moral-philosophical themes. And not just any themes. I want a narrative that is aware of tragedy without being defeated by it. A narrative that values equality and diversity, and hints at how we can move in that direction, without glossing over the contrary impulses in every human heart. Throw in an appreciation of art's power to undermine dehumanizing ideologies, connect it to God somehow, and you've got me hooked. The books below were not only my favorite novels of the year, but will also be favorites for years to come. Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (first published in 1980; expanded edition from Indiana University Press, 1998) Imagine the Bhagavad-Gita as a Punch-and-Judy show. What do the legend of St. Eustace and particle physics have in common? In this unique novel, part mystical treatise and part fantasy-horror fiction, two millennia h...
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A Christmas Thought
2011-12-25 17:28:00
Coming home from Midnight Mass last night, as I gazed up at the stars that shone brightly in the crisp cold atmosphere, I had the thought that there were two ways to interpret this sight. Intellectually, I knew that I was seeing immense orbs of fire burning light-years away, dwarfing our little planet, not to mention the quiet street where I stood. Emotionally, though, I felt that the canopy of stars was a cozy and hopeful sign for us down below, a celestial response to our joy. What a miracle, I thought, that the earth's atmosphere is made in such a way that we can see these faraway lights. How kind of them to stoop to communicate with us!So too with the Christ child. God is infinitely powerful and huge, the creator of those stars and galaxies whose scope we cannot imagine. Yet God also comes down to us, offering us a way in, a point of connection that is on the scale of the human heart and mind. Come, Lord Jesus.
More About: Christmas , Bible , Thought

Audre Lorde on the Spiritual Power of Eros
2011-12-19 22:34:00
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a black feminist lesbian poet and activist whose work continues to inspire creative writers and political movements today. This essay of hers, "The Uses of the Erotic", was reprinted on the alternative spirituality site Metahistory.org.It resonated with me because of my experience of eros in my own writing, and how it led me to greater confidence in a queer-affirming theology. I believe that any ideology that alienates a person from her erotic self must eventually cut her off from personal knowledge of the divine. (I'm not talking about a true vocation to celibacy, but rather the shame-based repression of one's erotic nature, whether acted upon or not. I would imagine that a healthy celibate person acknowledges and mindfully sublimates desire, without aversion or self-delusion.)For me, the erotic is where I most completely will myself, commit myself despite risks, and wake up to the consciousness of myself, at the same point where I am also most complet...
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Sunday Random Songs: Scrooge Edition
2011-12-18 21:44:00
All the forced good cheer and baby Jesus kitsch on the airwaves this time of year grates on my barren little heart. If you agree, you may enjoy these seasonal travesties that you're not likely to hear in Macy's anytime soon. John Denver, "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas) This is not supposed to be funny. But I am a sinner.   South Park, "Christmas Time in Hell" String up the lights and light up the tree, we're damned for all eternity! Kinsey Sicks, "God Bless Ye Femmy Lesbians" From their hit album, "Oy Vey in a Manger Suggest your own favorites in the comments box!
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Mended Souls, Better Than New
2011-12-18 01:40:00
A friend who is a sexual abuse survivor loaned me Renee Fredrickson's Recovered Memories to help me be a better ally and represent these issues more accurately in my creative writing. I'd like to share these words from the book's final chapter, as an inspiration to anyone recovering from trauma. On display in the Freer Museum in Washington, D.C., are ancient Zen ceremonial bowls renowned for their delicate beauty and fine craftsmanship. Over generations of use these lovely porcelain bowls became cracked and chipped, and some had whole pieces missing. Rather than being discarded or devalued because of the damage, the porcelain was repaired with gold. The gold adds strength, beauty, and value to the bowls, and the sacred bowls are marvelously enhanced by the repair process. So it is with survivors. You were damaged as you grew up, and the more abusively you were handled, the greater the damage. When you undertake to repair this damage, you replace bitterness and sadness with unde...
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Gender-Policing Ron Paul
2011-12-16 19:35:00
My best friend from Harvard is gradually winning me over to support Ron Paul 's presidential candidacy over Obama's. The feisty libertarian is holding his own in the GOP race despite derision from self-styled experts in both parties and some suspicious poll-doctoring by the major news networks. Anyone with so wide a range of ideological enemies is probably putting his finger on some uncomfortable truths about our country's asset bubble, military over-spending, creeping police state, and substitution of "culture wars" for genuine solutions. The site Ron Paul Myths gives a good overview of his actual positions and how they've been misrepresented. This morning my friend called my attention to this generally favorable Washington Post article, which nonetheless treats the Texas congressman as something of a sideshow act. As Hillary Clinton found, gender-policing is one of the tools that commentators use to undermine a candidate, making it seem ridiculous, even unnatural, for this pers...
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Reiter's Block Year in Review, Part 1: Best Poetry
2011-12-16 00:05:00
Loyal readers, I apologize for the three-week blog hiatus. I was writing 30 poems and poem-like scribblings for the month of November to raise money for The Center for New Americans, a literacy program for immigrants in Western Massachusetts. You can still sponsor me through the end of 2011 here. (I'm still writing poems, just in case.) This year-end roundup will be posted in several parts since there are so many good reads that I want to highlight. Today, I'll be recommending a few poetry books that caught my attention. Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg, eds., Gurlesque: The new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics (Saturnalia Books, 2010). Unicorns! Masturbation! Dead cows! As Glenum writes in her introduction to this anthology, "The Gurlesque describes an emerging field of female artists...who, taking a page from the burlesque, perform their femininity in a campy or overtly mocking way. Their work assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gend...
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Monday Random Song: Jason Bravo, "Isn't Love Reason Enough?"
2011-11-21 22:30:00
My good friend Jason Bravo wrote this beautiful song about being true to yourself. Maybe I'm biased, but I think it could be the next "Born This Way". No YouTube video yet, but you can stream the MP3 from his website. Purchase Jason's album Between Head and Heart at CD Baby or on iTunes. ISN?T LOVE REASON ENOUGH? (Words and music by Jason Bravo) Remember that summer when you and I walked on the sand? We talked about life in a heart to heart that was unplanned. We climbed on the rocks and we followed them along the shore. You talked in a way that I never heard you talk before. And I could hear your words unsaid. I could feel your pain. CHORUS: You?ve been looking for a reason not to hide it all away. But ISN?T LOVE REASON ENOUGH? You?ve been looking for a reason to be who you are someday. But ISN?T LOVE REASON ENOUGH? There are so many things that I wish you could learn from my past. So many decisions that I?d change if I could go back. I?d shake off my fear and my armor and l...
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Thoughts on Transgender Day of Remembrance
2011-11-20 22:28:00
Apologies for the blog hiatus. 30 Poems in November is kicking my butt. (Donate here to raise funds for literacy education.) More original content will be posted soon. Meanwhile, I would like to share these eloquent words from Natalie at the Skepchick blog about the importance of today's Transgender Day of Remembrance . Activists estimate that over 100 transgendered people are murdered each year in hate crimes. This is in addition to the other violence, discrimination, and sensationalized misrepresentation in the media that transpeople endure on a regular basis. On a more positive note, though, Massachusetts finally passed a bill to add some protections to our civil rights law for gender identity and expression. The compromise legislation now bans discrimination in employment, education, healthcare, and housing, though they were not able to get enough votes to add public accommodations to the list. Natalie's blog post explains why trans rights should matter to everyone (boldface...
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Murder Ballad Monday: Martina McBride, "Independence Day"
2011-11-07 17:14:00
Continuing our series of songs about women who turn the tables on their abusers permanently, today's murder ballad is country star Martina McBride's "Independence Day". Right and wrong lose their ordinary meanings for a child whose mother's desperate act can only be understood by other survivors.
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Winners of the Alabama State Poetry Society David Kato Prize for Poems abou
2011-11-03 21:03:00
The Alabama State Poetry Society offers a twice-yearly contest with a variety of themed prizes sponsored by different individuals and poetry organizations. For the Fall 2011 award series, I sponsored the David Kato Prize for poems about the human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. (Prizes: $50, $30, $20, plus HM's at judge's discretion.) The award honors a Ugandan gay activist who was murdered this year. With the permission of the authors and the ASPS, I am pleased to publish the winners below. First Prize: what more is there to say by Barry Marks oh mama mama oh god mama how can i not believe believe you made me what i am you and papa god papa what do i say what do i say when i say who i am who am i to question you mama when you say i should not i should not fit myself into another self it is not enough that a self is warm is loving is wanting my self the self you made the way i am the way you are you must be as i must be who is anyone to say to say th...
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Historic Homecoming for GLBT Alumni at Wheaton, an Evangelical College
2011-10-24 22:08:00
Wheaton College in Illinois has been called the Harvard of the evangelicals. Longtime readers of this blog may recall my reports from their theology conferences on the Trinity and spiritual formation. Though at one time I felt nourished by immersion in a community of serious Christian intellectuals, my shifting political sensibilities eventually made me too uncomfortable to return to an environment where non-heteronormative lives were (at best) erased.  That's why I was particularly happy to receive the latest Soulforce e-newsletter, which featured a report on OneWheaton, "a community of LGBTQ's and allies at Wheaton". This month, some 600 members took the bold step of attending Wheaton's homecoming weekend as openly queer alumni and allies. Here's an excerpt from the newsletter: "This is a real coming out, being here, being ourselves," said Frances Motiwalla, a 2000 Political Science graduate. "That's what this weekend is all about. This was a reassertion of our whole...
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Murder Ballad Monday: Dixie Chicks, "Goodbye Earl"
2011-10-24 21:50:00
Ever wonder why so many pop songs and folk ballads feature men killing their intimate partners? "Banks of the Ohio", "Delia's Gone", "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" (well okay, that one IS by The Killers, what do you expect)...they're so catchy, I hear myself singing along, and then I cringe. Score one for feminism against fun? Nope, not according to the Dixie Chicks. Getting back at an abuser has never been such a blast. Even dead Earl can't keep from dancing.  
More About: Murder , Music , Monday

Holidays, History, and Idols
2011-10-10 18:41:00
This weekend I heard a creative and challenging sermon linking our celebration of Columbus Day to the Biblical story of the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. Our preacher acknowledged the human impulse to create a tangible symbol of connection to the God we love. With Moses up on the mountain and God seemingly silent, a people adrift in a strange land needed an anchor for their devotion. This embodied imagination is the source of great religious art, but paradoxically, it can also create hindrances to knowing God. We mistake our concepts for the real God, who actually exceeds our comprehension. God became angry with the Israelites because He was trying to move them forward from concrete and magical thinking, toward openness to His infinite mystery.The stories that we tell about ourselves as a people, said our preacher, can become an idol as well. Like the golden calf, the celebration of Columbus's "discovery of America" helped unify and reassure a nation of displaced immigran...
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Murder Ballad Monday: Reba McEntire, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Geor
2011-10-03 20:37:00
Last night I was thrilled to attend a concert by country diva Reba McEntire at The Big E agricultural fair in West Springfield. With her trademark Oklahoma twang, fiery-haired Reba sings about real women surviving life's hard knocks: poverty, betrayal, falling in and out of love, making a fresh start in midlife. And, every now and then, an unsolved double murder. I spent several minutes on the drive home trying with limited success to explain the plot of this song to Adam. The official music video finally makes it clear. Whatever...I just love the chorus.
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Gay Rights and the Right to Sanity
2011-10-01 23:04:00
This June 2011 article from the progressive website Religion Dispatches captures the essence of why I fight so hard for GLBT equality, particularly within the church. In his piece "The Battle Beneath the Battle: Do Gay People Exist?", Jay Michaelson says the issue is nothing less than the right to believe your own perceptions, and to be recognized as an authority about your own subjective experience. In a word: sanity.I've taken the unusual step of quoting the whole article because Michaelson's argument is so concise and well-constructed that to leave out any paragraph would undermine it. I've boldfaced key points. He writes: There?s a cognitive dissonance in our religious and political debates about homosexuality: it?s the only cultural struggle I can think of where one?s very existence is routinely denied by political opponents. African Americans have long had their humanity denied?but they are still seen, and recognized. Women?s rights and freedoms are again under attack, and ...
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Torture in America's Supermax Prisons
2011-09-29 20:35:00
Writing last year in Boston Review, a well-regarded magazine of literature and politics, reporter Lance Tapley shines a spotlight on the routine physical and mental degradation that inmates endure in America's supermax prisons. The article was adapted from his contribution to Marjorie Cohn's anthology The United States and Torture , published this past January by NYU Press. Tapley notes that the types of abuses we rightly decried at Guantanamo are actually common in the regular prison system, but these receive far less press attention, even though the victims are American citizens. (My pen pal Conway resides in a supermax facility in California.) An excerpt from the article follows. Tapley is discussing Mike James, an inmate at a Maine supermax: James, who is in his twenties, has been beaten all his life, first by family members: ?I was punched, kicked, slapped, bitten, thrown against the wall.? He began seeing mental-health workers at four and taking psychiatric medication at sev...

Sign the NAACP Pledge to End the Death Penalty
2011-09-27 15:53:00
We couldn't stop the execution of Troy Davis, but we can honor his final wish by abolishing the death penalty. It doesn't deter crime, it costs the government a lot of money in appeals, it's applied disproportionately to poor and minority defendants who can't afford good lawyers, and most importantly, there's no second chance when you execute an innocent person. I signed this pledge on the NAACP website and hope you will too: In the Name of Troy Davis: Pledge to End the Death Penalty in the United States I pledge to fight to end the death penalty in the United States because Troy Anthony Davis was executed despite extreme and well-known doubts about his guilt. I pledge to fight to end the death penalty in the United States because the system failed Troy, even though the system is supposed to be fail-proof. I pledge to fight to end the death penalty in the United States because these failures are the result of a system that gives the power of life and death to humans, w...
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Justice Starts With Being Heard
2011-09-25 16:58:00
Sometimes it feels like words are impotent, so long as power is held by a few people who choose to be deaf to truth and compassion. Despite millions of petition signatures and years of advocacy by such respected human-rights organizations as Amnesty International and the NAACP, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis this week for a murder that he may not have committed. Whether or not you oppose the death penalty in general, as I do, the problems with the evidence in this case underscore the perils of allowing fallible human beings to impose a punishment that can't be undone. It was timely, then, to receive a message from poet and expressive writing facilitator Margot Van Sluytman, with a link to her guest post at Justice With a Crunch. Margot heads the Sawbonna Project, which promotes healing and reconciliation for crime victims and perpetrators. She says of herself: Because of reading about an award I received from The Foundation for the National Association for Poetry Therap...

New Poems by Conway: "Leap Frog" and "Proof of Perfection"
2009-09-22 02:03:00
My prison pen pal "Conway" has been experimenting with the prose-poem format while continuing to develop his gift for lyric poetry. I've been writing to him about my struggles with religious concepts of sacrifice and submission as I see them being misused in the church. I see those discussions reflected in his latest offerings, below.Leap Frog Imagine, what His hand and throat beganthrough all of the silences we chopped outin front of our father's shining eyes.I've no need to sing it anymoreor finish the melted words melody.We can all see & smell around the burning nights nettle,as fluttering moths fill this scene's backdoor screenstendering an irresistible invitation to attackin search of a crack in the curtains' narrow track.While chance packs another perishable skulltight enough to subsist, in the spiritualshimmering lushness, of dawn's faithful light.  The tears diminish in the theft of a wilting heartbent willows seeking flesh, have wroughtevery salt-sprinkled dro...
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I'm in an Open Relationship with Jesus
2009-09-20 23:07:00
Someone close to me was telling me this morning about her struggle to accept her rabbi's teaching that she should love God more than anything or anyone. "I can't help it," she said, "I love my daughter more!"In the past I might have given a neat response, paraphrasing Tim Keller, to the effect that idolizing any created thing puts unbearable pressure on yourself (because you can lose it through failure or mischance) and on the one idolized (who feels compelled to be impossibly perfect). C.S. Lewis illustrates this distortion in The Great Divorce, his fantasy of damned souls on a field trip to heaven, through the character of an old woman who mourned her dead son so obsessively that she neglected the surviving members of her family. Lewis suggests that over time, the object of her passion became her own identity as a mourner, rather than the real person she had lost. To love someone properly, on the other hand, is to recognize that you are not the author of the universe, which soon...
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Friday Random Song: Jason Bravo, "You Raise Me Up"
2009-09-18 21:12:00
Buffalo, NY-based singer/songwriter Jason Bravo 's performances of original pop songs and classic covers can be enjoyed on his YouTube channel, BraveHealerMusic . His debut album "Between Head and Heart" is available from CDBaby. In this concert clip from summer 2009, he's performing Josh Groban's hit song "You Raise Me Up", with my best buddy Greg Bravo on the awesome guitar solos. When I am down, and oh my soul, so weary. When troubles come, and my heart burdened be. Then I am still and wait here in the silence. Until You come and sit awhile with me. You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be. You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be. There is no life -- no life without its hunger. Each restless heart beats so imperfectly. But when you ...
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Wednesday Random Song: "Brighten the Corner Where You Are"
2009-09-16 23:41:00
Ina Duley Ogdon was a Midwestern wife and mother and Sunday School teacher during the early 20th century. Ogdon had ambitions of becoming a preacher but family responsibilities intervened. Her poem "Brighten the Corner Where You Are" was written in 1912 while she was caring for her sick father. Set to music by Charles H. Gabriel, the tune became a nationwide hit after evangelist Billy Sunday made it a staple of his revival meetings. I first heard it this week on Enlighten 34, the Southern gospel station on XM Radio, in a lively rendition by The Statesmen which I wasn't able to find on YouTube. (It's featured on this album.) Instead, enjoy this old-school version by the Criterion Quartet: This interesting 10-minute video tells the story of Ina's life and the inspiration for the song, as well as its subsequent cultural reception. 1. Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do, Do not wait to shed your light afar; To the many duties ever near you now b...
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Mary Ruefle: "A Minor Personal Matter"
2009-09-15 19:56:00
Halfway between prose-poems and essays, the offbeat musings in Mary Ruefle's The Most of It (Wave Books, 2008) take some mundane incident--picking out a garden bench, for instance, or drinking a glass of water--as the starting point for an increasingly strange chain of associations. The original question becomes lost in the narrator's argument with herself about action versus inaction. As in a Platonic dialogue, the only enlightenment we take away is an awareness of how muddled our concepts are. Or, to use a more modern example, Ruefle is like the toddler in the "Buttons and Mindy" cartoons who perpetually reduces adults to sputtering frustration by responding "Why?" to everything they say. Just when this aimless demolition seems to have gone on too long, Ruefle ends the book with the astonishing piece "A Half-Sketched Head", in which we see that the preceding diversions served the same purpose as Zen koans, to humble the chattering mind and make room for spiritual clarity.Rather ...
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Constantine P. Cavafy: "In Despair"
2009-09-11 23:30:00
Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) is acclaimed for his poems of love and longing. The website Billie Dee's Electronic Poetry Anthology includes several of his poems translated by Rae Dalven. I particularly appreciated this one, depicting the familiar tragedy of religious guilt coming between two lovers. Which of them is pursuing an illusion? Perhaps both; or perhaps the idealized lover of our imagination, whether human or divine, is a more rewarding prize than the love of an ordinary mortal.In Despair He has lost him completely.   And now he is     seekingon the lips of    every new loverthe lips of his beloved   in the embraceof every new lover    he seeks to be deludedthat he is the same lad,   that it it to him he is     yielding.He has lost him completely,    as if he had never     been at all.For he wanted -- so he s...

Speaking Justice Versus Living It
2009-09-11 23:07:00
One of my challenges as an activist, and as a Christian, is finding the proper balance between speaking about my values and living them out. Too much discussion keeps me unhealthily engaged with self-justification against opponents, while too little can be a form of selfish quietism in the face of widespread misinformation about what the Bible says.The Epistle of James has a lot to say about closing the gap between hearing and doing God's word. This recent installment of the Human Rights Campaign's Out in Scripture lectionary e-newsletter includes some fruitful reflections on that text (boldface emphasis mine):Our conversation about this week?s lectionary Bible passages began with James 1:17-27. What is the way of God?s wisdom? The book of James suggests that it is the ?law of liberty? (James 2:12). And that law starts with doing. Doers of the law?s basic justice requirements place themselves in risky outreach settings in which we are inevitably challenged to know who we really...
More About: Living , Justice , Versus , Episcopal

The Theology of Abuse (Part One)
2009-09-10 23:29:00
Hugo, via Facebook, pointed me to today's Washington Post story about a new study on clergy sexual abuse from Baylor University's School of Social Work: One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader, a survey released Wednesday says.The study, by Baylor University researchers, found that the problem is so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions and leaders."It certainly is prevalent, and clearly the problem is more than simply a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers," said Diana Garland, dean of Baylor's School of Social Work, who co-authored the study.It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.... For its study, Baylor used the 2008 General Social Survey, a nationally representative sample of 3,559 respondents, to estimate the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct. Wo...
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Literary Journal Roundup: Gemini Magazine, DIAGRAM, and More
2009-09-10 21:16:00
As my attention span fades along with the light of summer days, I'm appreciating the brevity and variety that a good literary journal can offer. Here are some of the publications I've been enjoying this season:Naugatuck River Review's summer 2009 issue is stuffed with good narrative poetry on themes including fathers and sons, aging, class and race, romance, miscarriages, Mexico, horses, D-Day flashbacks, and what happens when you're in a bar with a woman who sees God. Read the issue from beginning to end because editor Lori Desrosiers has structured it like a narrative, with one theme segueing into the next. If you're in Western Massachusetts this Tuesday night, come to the NRR authors' reading at Spoken Word in Greenfield.Think you know all there is to know about Huck Finn? The Missouri Review's summer 2009 issue includes a provocative essay by Andrew Levy, arguing that Twain's book is not primarily about race but about our culture's myths and fears concerning adolescent ...
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Hometown Favorite Lorelei Erisis Crowned Miss Trans Northampton
2009-09-08 21:36:00
Local activist, journalist and Pride emcee Lorelei Erisis won the Miss Trans Northampton 2009 pageant at the Center for the Arts this past weekend. The eight contestants represented, to my eyes, an interesting variety of ways for someone born biologically male to perform femininity. Those with a more petite build, like second runner-up Lily Rin, convincingly resembled young glamorous women, with high voices to match. Meanwhile, Lorelei and first runner-up Leslie-Anne Rios were tall and striking figures with deeper, rougher voices and a commanding stage presence. Their self-presentation occupied some third space between the conventions of male and female appearance. Leslie-Anne, for instance, looked sassy in an evening gown and sang a heartfelt song of her own composition about finding peace within--female?--but flexed her biceps with a wink at the end--male? Lorelei's talent-show entry was a performance piece about her transition, starting out in a man's suit and ending up in a br...
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