PUB OR PERISH – ARKANSAS LITERARY FESTIVAL – APRIL 10 @ 8:00
READ MORE ABOUT PUB & PERISH AT THE ARKANSAS TIMES.
READ MORE ABOUT PUB & PERISH AT THE ARKANSAS TIMES.
Sixth grade stands out,
with Jay and his late-eighties hair,
the first boy in our class to discover
gels and spray and bathroom mirrors.
He was mean to me, jealous
because I was considered smarter,
because I made an appearance
on the television news
delivering the weather into homes
of the pretty little girls he loved.
I faked the results of the science experiment
that won me small-town media acclaim.
I faked the Valentine I chose for Jay that year,
Be My Friend
when I’m Yours hid in my backpack,
his name written then erased.
© Bryan Borland
*Inspired by this poem at Quid Pro Tau
In celebration of the upcoming release of my book, My Life as Adam, I thought it would be fun to have a little poetry contest. My idea is to invite you, Dear Readers, to write the next poem in the Fag/Hag or Hag/Fag (or hell, Fag/Stag – Google the term “Fag Stag” if you are a straight man) series. No limit on lines, form, structure, subject matter, etc., just a poem that would fit, in your perception, under the title, “Fag/Hag (or Hag/Fag or Fag/Stag) Series: [Your Poem's Title]. Entries will be blindly judged by one of my oldest and dearest friends and the star of this series, the always opinionated MedicatedLady, who still holds a grudge against me because I won the coveted “Creative Writing” award in our senior year of high school and wants you to know that she is not, indeed, a Fag Hag.
To enter the contest, send a poem that you perceive qualifies as “fitting within this series” to my email address: PoeticGrin@aol.com
Don’t post your poem here – that will come later. I’ll collect the entries, remove the poets’ names, and present them to MedicatedLady to select a winner. Your perception of what fits into this series is completely up to you. It does NOT have to be about MedicatedLady and myself. Be creative and invent characters. Be revealing about a friendship (or more) from your past. Write a poem about the guy you knew was gay in school. Flip the script and write a poem that’s anti terms like Fag Hag. It’s all good.
The winner will receive the very first autographed copy of My Life as Adam, as well as a random object from the home of MedicatedLady.
The deadline for entry is Sunday, February 14th. I’ll post the entries on the blog after the winner has been announced, and let readers vote on a “crowd favorite” who will receive the second autographed copy of My Life as Adam and another random object from the home of MedicatedLady. (So yes, there will be two winners!)
Several examples of poems from the “Fag/Hag” series can be found by clicking the drop-down menu on the right side your screen. Other examples can be found at MedicatedLady’s website. However, entries do not have to emulate the style of poems we’ve written.
Good luck, and remember, you don’t have to be gay or a straight woman with gay friends to enter the contest! You don’t even have to be a poet! You just have to be, um, willing to experiment. Like we all did in college. Or that summer no one discusses.
Email your entries to PoeticGrin@aol.com, especially if you were going to buy Adam anyway. What do you have to lose?
- Bryan
Lately she’s been misspeaking,
mother instead of matter,
milk instead of tea.
Yesterday she admitted
to having a new fetus
instead of the fetish she intended,
which is a ravenous interest
in twenty four year olds.
When gay men come out
later in life,
they often experience
a second adolescence,
as they never had a first.
It’s the same, really, for her.
She buys sexy lingerie,
shakes out her luminous hair
and prowls,
thirty-one divided by two
is the new fifteen and a half.
The cougar by moon,
in sparsely furnished apartments
or short drives to different zip codes,
is by day, by Freud,
calling to invite me to a pregnancy
instead of a picnic.
She just laughs at her oral
slips and fucks.
Her biological clock is ticking
like the girl’s got Tourette’s.
© Bryan Borland
