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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2001)
june 15.20Q1 ’ BOOKS ...............▼............... Poetic justice L ove S peaks I ts N ame : G ay and L esbian L ove P oems Edited by J.D. McClatchy. Knopf, 2001; $12.50 hardcover. hat a treat this lit- tie gem of a book is. Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems is small and portable yet packed with variety. J.D. McClatchy’s selections cover the entire range of heartfelt emotion. Arranged by sub ject, headings include Longing, Looking, Lov ing, Ecstasy, Anxiety and Aftermath. We all have been to most of these places. McClatchy chose works from every possible source and age. The poems of ancient Sappho lie easily across the page from a piece by Paul Monette that surprisingly is followed by a Noel Coward lyric. It’s an eclectic mix—and it works. For such a small collection, selections are hard to choose. I started marking pages for examples and ended up with a book full of markers. Under Longing, from "The Stars Don’t Move” by Sandro Penna: The stars don’t move in the sky, the summer hour is like any other summer. Eclectic anthology focuses on same-sex love; camp creator credited But the boy walking ahead of you— If you don’t speak up he’ll never be the one... Under Anxiety, from “Afraid of Losing You” by Sappho: Afraid of losing you I ran fluttering like a little girl after her mother. “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden now forev er will be included in any anthology of gay and lesbian poetry. It’s too perfect and seems, some how, intended just for us. One portion: He was my North, my South, my East, my West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would lost forever: I was urong. My only possible quibble is that the bio graphical information on the writers is scant and poorly organized at the end of the book. Other than that, I can’t find much to fault in this small but dense anthology of poems any gay person would cherish. And even the price is right. —Richard Bray U ncle M ame : T he L ife of P atrick D ennis by Eric Meyers. St. Martin’s Press, 2000; $24.95 hardcover. ny gay man who has squealed with delight when Rosalind Russell thrust her arms wide open and cried, “But darling, I’m your Auntie Mame!” will not be sur prised to learn the character’s creator, Patrick Dennis, not only was gay but practically invented camp. For years readers have assumed that because Patrick Dennis is the name of both the author and narrator of Auntie Mame, the novel must be autobiographical. But according to Eric Meyers’ book Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis, it is Patrick Dennis who rightly could thrust his arms out and shout the immortal line. Bom Edward Everett Tanner 111 in 1921, he began his literary career writing skits as a Boy Scout, one of which had an 11 -year-old boy announce to an audience full of parents, “I’d like to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Bates and their little son, Master Bates.” Using the pseu donym Patrick Dennis (as well as Virginia Rowans) he went on to pen 16 comic novels, including the unjustly out-of-print Little Me, but Auntie Mame is what forever will secure him a place in gay camp culture. I Meyers affectionately catalogs Dennis’ many attempts to shock and delight his pub lic, as in this Auntie Mame press release: “Darling, my unscrupulous nephew Patrick Dennis has written a scurrilous book about me. It’s full of lies. It says I was caught nude in the dormitories of Princeton. It’s not so! It was Yale!” Beneath Dennis’ bonhomie, however, lay a manic-depressive torment about his sexuality that eventually led to his institutionalization. The story grows increasingly bizarre after that, as he breaks all ties with his glittering society life and embarks on a second career as a butler to some of the country’s wealthiest citizens, including McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc. Like Auntie Mame herself, though, Dennis’ warm-hearted zaniness is what pervades Mey ers’ informal and immensely readable biogra phy. Uncle Mame paints a richly detailed portrait of a lost time of wit and sophistication. Be sure to pick up a copy of Auntie Mame itself as a companion. 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