Friday, June 28, 2019

Special Feature: Selected LGBTQ Tanka

My Dear Readers:

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising (June 28–29, 1969), known as the birth of the modern LGBTQ movement. I would like to share with you a set of  LGBTQ tanka that might help to deepen your understanding of sexual orientation and gender fluidity. 

Selected Tanka:

summer twilight
at the Stonewall Inn
he slides his hand
over the man beside him
murmuring, for real this time?

Chen-ou Liu

two-spirited
this (wo)man revered
by one culture
how could (s)he be
so reviled by another

Debbie Strange
(Note:  "Two-Spirit (also two spirit or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial role in their cultures..." --excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, Two-Spirit)

our hearts are pierced
in daily conversations
lives ripped apart
and pains unstitched
by personal pronouns

Barbara A. Taylor

wheat field
seed heads this way
& that
the uncle who became
a distant aunt

André Surridge

my partner and I
both wearing white dresses
down the aisle
I feel a jealous pang . . .
he looks better in heels

Tracy Davidson

black and white
paintings on the pot
the transgender
searches the streak of colors
to fill the gap of the emptiness

Pravat Kumar Padhy

he chose
surgery to become
a woman
posing as a man
to see his grandchildren

Ignatius Fay

tumbling
through winter
she knew she didn't stay fit...
a doll's life trapped
inside a young man’s body

Sergio A. Ortiz

I see him
in a three piece suit
at the train station --
the girl who once dreamt
of bridal veils

Chen-ou Liu

first gay
marriage in his family
the fragrance
of a cedar closet
his parents bought for him

Chen-ou Liu

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