Is there a distinct aesthetic for a queer poet writing about love?
My goal in my homoerotic book of love poems, Beautiful Signor, was to claim traditional romantic tropes, primarily from the troubadour and Sufi traditions, for the gay community, to testify that we have “moons and Junes” as well. I wanted to create a springtime “garden” that straight people could walk into, too, and feel at home. So no, I don’t think there’s necessarily a distinct aesthetic, but I do believe that a queer poet writes with a keen sense of how love is often hindered or even imperiled by society’s and the traditional family’s rampant fears and prejudices. Beautiful Signor All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man’s or woman’s body. —Yeats, “The Phases of the Moon” Whenever we wake, still joined, enraptured— at the window, each clear night’s finish the black pulse of dominoes dropping to land; whenever we embrace, haunted, upwelling, I know a reunion is taking place— Hear me when I say our love’s not meant to be an opiate; helpmate, you are the reachable mirror that dar
