This post was submitted by John "Jolly" Bavoso

Last week, while working on my post about Russia, I stumbled across a story about a statue of Walt Whitman being unveiled in Moscow and the contradiction that was inherent in having a notoriously anti-gay mayor praising the work of such a well-known, American queer artist. That, combined with last week’s Friday Staff Survey, which asked us to list our favorite books, got me thinking about some of my favorite queer poets and poems from around the world.

Selena has done a great job spotlighting some amazing LGBT Poets, and I thought I might throw in my two cents with some writers from around the world that I enjoy. Yes, this is somewhat self-indulgent, but I hope my fellow Global Gaze fans will spotlight other international poets you enjoy so we can all throw a little support and attention to these queer artists, many of whom are writing in areas of the world that are hostile towards sexual minorities.

Edwin Morgan – Scotland

Aside from being an all-around amazing writer, Edwin Morgan is the poet I always think of first when it comes to gay poetry, mostly because of his ability to unabashedly use gay themes and imagery while still making his poetry universal and accessible to the mainstream reader. Morgan is most closely associated with the so-called Scottish Renaissance and is widely considered one of the leading Scottish poets of the 20th Century. As an openly gay man who has often written about his sexuality, it is encouraging to note that Morgan was made the first ever Glasgow Poet Laureate and then in 2004 was named the first Scots Makar, or Scottish national poet. He’s also famously been asked to write poems for the opening of Scottish LGBT centers and of the Scottish Parliament itself over the years.

I became familiar with Morgan’s work when I was asked to lead a week’s worth of classes on him and his poems for my English senior seminar on Scottish Literature and Culture as an undergrad. He has an amazing range, having basically experimented with every genre, from translation and the creation of poems in the traditional Scottish dialect, to futuristic, sci-fi poems and everything in between. The poem that always comes to mind when I think of him and his ability to break down borders, however, is a poem called “Glasgow Green,” which unflinchingly draws attention to the issue of male-on-male rape, and is a piece that Morgan was afraid wouldn’t be published, let alone taught in public schools, as it is today. If that’s not an appropriate symbol for the gradual opening of society, I don’t know what is. It also typifies Morgan’s work in that, despite its queer connotations, the best lines could apply to anyone, regardless of sexuality: “This is not the delicate nightmare/you carry to the point of fear/and wake from, it is life.”  You can check out a video of Morgan reading “Glasgow Green” here.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha – Canada/Sri Lanka

Some poets, while born in the West, work to give a voice to people in other parts of the world. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Toronto-based poet who was born in Massachusetts, but whose work often deals with and centers upon the experiences of LGBT people and the lives of women in South Asia and Sri Lanka. She is perhaps best known for her hard-hitting work that unflinchingly addresses topics such as feminism, colonialism, violence and abuse. Take, for example, her poem “noise,” which begins thusly:

if a girl screams
in a forest
in an oil field on fire
in a immigration holdin cell motel by the airport
and CNN doesn’t tell it
no reporters embedded to witness
does she make a sound?
does her voice
spread over galaxies
neutrons milky ways
mars and jupiter
closer than they’ve ever been
does she make a sound and
does anyone give a fuck.

She is also known for being the co-founder of the traveling queer cabaret group Mangos with Chili, a group that will be performing in DC this weekend.

Cyril Wong – Singapore

The fact that Singapore is one of the places in the world where homosexual acts remain illegal hasn’t stopped one of the country’s leading young poets from writing openly about his life as a gay man. At only 32 years of age, Cyril Wong, a man of Chinese descent living in Singapore, has already won the Golden Point Award, National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award and Singapore Literature Prize. Wong tends to differ from many of those who have come before him in that, rather than writing primarily about his national identity, he writes deeply personal autobiographical poetry. And despite his use of humor and self-deprecation, he also has very strong opinions, especially when it comes to poetry: “Though he cites the succinct, confessional styles of American poets Sharon Olds and Raymond Carver as his most direct influences, he feels little in common with contemporary American poetry, which he sees as solipsistic. ‘There’s a boring sameness to it all,’ he says. ‘I wish they would stop harping on about their penises and their nose hairs.’”

And while being gay in a culture that legally frowns upon it has sometimes been a challenge, Wong has never been afraid to write his sexuality into his work without making it the centerpiece. In one of my favorite poems by Wong, “I Didn’t Expect To Write About Sex,” he ends a very explicit description of a sexual encounter with this beautifully worded sentiment:

I could write about how when you fell
off the peak of your mounting hunger, your hands stayed anchored
upon my nape, as if to keep from drowning, as if to let me know,
“Even when I’m this far gone, I’d want you here. I’d want you with me.”

Staceyann Chin – Jamaica

Staceyann Chin is another poet who is fearless in her work despite being from a country known for its hostility towards its queer citizens. Though she now lives in New York, Chin lived in Jamaica until she was 24 and is the daughter of a Chinese Jamaican man and a Black Jamaican woman. She is openly gay and often incorporates LGBT activism into her brash spoken word poetry and performance art. The Advocate once wrote, “With poems that combine hilarious one-liners (‘I told her I liked the way she made that pink push-up bra look intellectual’) with a refusal to conform (‘I want to be the dyke who likes to fuck men’), Chin is out to confront more than just the straight world.” She’s also recently released a memoir called The Other Side of Paradise about her time in Jamaica and subsequent move to New York, excerpts of which you can read on her website. While purists often look down on spoken word poetry, Chin’s energy and passionate delivery really make her a thrill to watch. My favorite example of her work is included below.

Obviously, there are so many more poets that I could have listed, but this post would have gone on forever. I encourage you to give a shout out to your favorite international poet (living or deceased) in the comments below!

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