My Issue with the Excellent LGBTQ Civil Rights Law Supreme Court Decision

In response to this New York Times article, "Civil Rights Law Protects Gay and Transgender Workers, Supreme Court Rules," by Adam Liptak, June 15, 2020, from where I also got this picture.

I am absolutely thrilled with this decision by the Supreme Court, and pleasantly surprised by Roberts and Gorsuch joining the majority opinion. But it pains me greatly to have to agree with the horrible Alito and Kavanaugh that "sex" does not legally cover "sexual orientation" or "gender." I would much prefer that those be added to the 1964 law as separate protections.

Sexual orientation, or sexuality, the direction of love and attraction, is not sex, which refers to physical biology. My sexual orientation is homosexual, because I am attracted to members of my own male sex (and my own male gender). Although I suppose an unproven case could be made for genetics being the determining factor in sexuality, this is uncertain enough to separate sexuality from biological sex.

My gender, the socio-psychological-spiritual identification aspect of the gender spectrum, is also heavily freighted toward male alignment for me, but again, gender is not sex. There are those of male sex and female gender, and vice versa, and a huge range in between and outside that spectrum.

Sex, sexuality, and gender are all entirely deserving protection in this civil rights employment law, but it is reductive to consider them the same thing. I certainly applaud this decision to broaden the legal shield, but I hope more accurate specification will be forthcoming.

Literate Discussions 7: William Carlos Williams

I enjoyed taking part in this sprightly discussion with Professor David Hornbuckle from the University of Alabama at Birmingham on his show Literate Discussions about two classic Imagist, Modernist poems by William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This Is Just to Say."

Reading "Prophet"

A reading of my poem "Prophet" from the book Render, against a backdrop of film noir, government educational movies, and gay-panic PSA collage. Originally created for the Creative Pois-On series #CreativityWillSaveUs, episode 10.

Here's my video:

Here's the whole Creative Pois-On episode 10, which is definitely worth a watch!

Render is available in paperback and Kindle editions at Brighten Press.

Reading "Merge"

New video up on YouTube: reading my poem "Merge" from the poetry book Catfish and After, surrounded by video collage of nostalgic childhood moments from the 1980s, family wishes from the 1960s, parading elephants, a clown, American traditions, military iconography, and hot men exercising. The lines of poetry are included in the video.

Catfish and After is available in Kindle and paperback editions from Brighten Press.

Final Call for Submissions to The Book of Scorpio!

Final call!

Brighten Press is publishing a paperback and e-book anthology of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with a SCORPIO theme.

Deadline March 31, 2020.

Previously published work welcome.

Details at Brighten Press.

"Catfish" Reading Video

I was invited by the lovely Bill Arning to give a poetry reading at the Flatland gallery tonight, but of course that has been postponed as we all virally die and the world ends. But I thought I might as well record the long poem I was intending to read anyway, as we’ve all gone virtual as it is.

I’ll be reading the poem Catfish, from my poetry book Catfish and After, Brighten Press. 2019. I began it when I was in the throes of falling in love with a gorgeous, smart, funny, deaf architect on the chat app Grindr. We had been chatting for a month non-stop daily, diving deep into one another, telling stories of our lives and sharing our hopes and terrors and depressions, connecting on a level I hadn’t experienced in nearly a decade. His pictures were sexy and stunning, with his deafness explaining his introversion and unwillingness to meet right away. It also seemed to explain his reluctance to tell me his last name or phone number.

But as I invested more in him emotionally over the coming weeks, it set off all kinds of alarms that I couldn’t find any trace of his existence online. The red flags flapped, but he was so consistent in his stories and personality that I couldn’t imagine he wasn’t who he said he was. I’m an insightful storyteller, with a powerful bullshit detector. I couldn’t possibly be deceived to such an extent. As I panicked and churned with emotion, I began to write about it, and the raw material for this poem spilled out over the coming weeks.

After I learned the truth, after I recovered, after I wrote the poetry cycle After, I cut and honed this cyberfraud material to pare it down to the poem I’m going to read right now.

This is Catfish, from Catfish and After, by Gene Hult.

Available in paperback and Kindle editions at brightenpress.com.

Open Writing Call for The Book of Scorpio!

Brighten Press is publishing a paperback and e-book anthology of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with a SCORPIO theme. 

Deadline March 31, 2020. 

Previously published work welcome.

Submission guidelines and more information:

http://brightenpress.com/creatives.shtml

Reminder: Submit Your Writing to the Scorpio Anthology!

Brighten Press is publishing a paperback and e-book collection of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with a Scorpio theme.

The deadline for submissions to the Scorpio anthology is March 21, 2020. 

Previously published work is welcome, as long as you retain all publication rights.

More information and submission guidelines are available at brightenpress.com/creatives.shtml.

Thank you, and we look forward to reading your work.

Open Call for the Scorpio Anthology

Open call for submissions for a new writing anthology!

BrightenPress is publishing a paperback and e-book collection of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with a Scorpio theme.

The deadline for submissions to the Scorpio anthology is March 21, 2020.

More information and submission guidelines available at brightenpress.com/creatives.shtml.

Thank you, and we look forward to reading your work.

Catfish and After -- paperback copies!

I received my first batch of paperback copies of my new poetry book Catfish and After today, and I'm pleased with the way they look. It's available at brightenpress.com.

Catfish and After Memes

I can't prove anything he says.

Some cyber-psychos deliberately deceive. Catfish is a long poem about being in love with an ideal but fraudulent man on the chat app Grindr. After is an Imagist cycle of poetry about psychic, creative, and romantic reconstruction in the aftermath.

I'll be posting Catfish and After poetry memes here as I make them.

Catfish and After by Gene Hult is available in paperback and Kindle editions from Brighten Press.

New Poetry Book! CATFISH AND AFTER

In the throes of an exciting but bewildering love affair conducted entirely in intense, constant text with a sexy and smart deaf architect on the chat app Grindr, I started writing poetry about it when he repeatedly refused to meet. Following months of increasingly fraught but non-stop conversation, he ghosted me entirely, and I couldn't find him anywhere. I couldn't confirm a single thing he'd told me. When he finally returned, it was with a story stranger and more disappointing, more heartbreaking, than anything I'd feared. I had been catfished by a fraud.

Those months of poems were whittled down to form the 30-page long poem Catfish. 

In the aftermath, I kept writing, detailing the psychic, emotional, creative, and romantic reconstruction in the wake of that shock of dashed hopes. Those separate poems are collected in the cycle After.

Now available in Kindle and paperback editions from Brighten Press: Catfish and After.

You Can Hear the Ocean poetry memes

I'll be posting here poetry memes for Brighten Press's new book, You Can Hear the Ocean: An Anthology of Classic and Current Poetry. I think I'm going to create them in pairs, contrasting the historical poets with the modern ones. Enjoy . . . and please share!

You Can Hear the Ocean: An Anthology of Classic and Current Poetry is now available in Kindle and paperback editions at brightenpress.com.