Two Poems up at Lambda Literary

I have two poems up at LambdaLiterary.org in their new poetry section: “I Could Not Say” and “Keystone Effect: KKK Rally in Carlisle” which you can read HERE.

Both are old love poems (written ten years ago this month!) that I rehabilitated a couple years ago for my PA-themed Keystone Effect chapbook manuscript. They have found new homes in the re-imagined third section of The Erotic Postulate.

The “I Could Not Say” poem takes its cue from an exercise Muriel Rukeyser would use with students, to begin a poem with those words to see what silences we’ve imposed on ourselves. “KKK Rally in Carlisle” is part of a “Keystone Effect” diptych (the other half, “Pole Steeple” will be debuting in the first issue of Assaracus soon).  The “Keystone Effect” duo was inspired by this line from Adrienne Rich’s What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics:

“…no lesbian or gay bedroom–in whatever gentrified neighborhood or tent pitched off the Appalachian trail–is a safe harbor from bigotry (and for some, not only bigotry, but lethal violence).”