Reading from “When I Was Straight”#Poetry #LGBTQ #ImStillWithHer

 

 

 

Last month, I read “When I Was Straight” from my collection of poetry by the same name published by Insight To Riot Press in 1995.  I read at Jim Cory’s poetry salon in Philadelphia.  Jim was the founder of the collective.  Below is a photograph from Thom Nickels book “Literary Philadelphia” of founding members of the press, Jim Cory, CAConrad and myself. It felt good to remember/revive that incendiary rage!

 

 

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Looking At Pictures — debut of my new novel #ourstoriesmatter #storieseverywhere

Looking at Pictures is the novel that I spent last winter writing. It gives us a glimpse into the loves and lives of well known artists and ordinary people, both queer and not, all of whom live outside the box.  It is a novel influenced by history — it takes place in 1926 — and by the people who lived in that time.  Many of the characters are actual artists, including fine art photographers.

This novel was inspired, in large part, by the work that I have been doing with Jeanette Jimenez on the archive of her father Alexander Artway (an architect and photographer who photographed New York City in the 1930s). The archive is extremely interesting and the photographs brilliant!

The first short fiction excerpt –titled Looking At Pictures — of my novel was just published by devise literary and is partially excerpted below. Very shortly after I finished the novel last Spring, I heard from David Acosta (formerly known as Juan David Acosta) who invited me to be one of the readers at his new series at Casa de Duende. The piece that I read was a chapter set in Mexico which features the characters Frida and Tina.  The YouTube video, below, includes David’s wonderful introduction. If I were to rate this YouTube piece, it is definitely PG-plus.  It’s called “Ecstasy” and is influenced by lesbian sex, philosophy and LOVE. (A photograph of all the readers is below the YouTube video.)

 

Fiction: Looking at Pictures

Issue 1.2

by Janet Mason

(May, 1926)

Tina looked at the image in front of her and wished she still had her camera.

She was walking along the deepwater port looking into the hold of a ship that had backed up to the cement pier. She could see both levels. Initially she assumed that first class was on the top and that steerage was down below.  Then she noticed that the people below were almost all women and children.  They looked like immigrants from Europe wrapped in their drab shawls and holding their squalling infants.  None of them looked up.

……read more at devise literary

 

“Ecstasy“@ Casa de Duende:

 

 

 

 

The readers at Casa de Dunende’s queer reading series last Spring at the Da Vinci Art Alliance: (first row — left to right) David Acosta; Susan DiPronio; Lamont Steptoe; (second row – left to right) Cyree Jarelle Johnson; Janet Mason; Thom Nickels; (third row back Maxton Young-Jones.

Many thanks to David Acosta, Artistic Director for Casa de Duende, for bringing us all together!

 

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Spiritual Rage: A Unitarian Universalist Perspective #ImStillWithHer

(previously in The Huffington Post /Religion)

I had a spiritual revelation in my polling place last week in the presidential election. My partner and I chatted with others in line. There were many familiar faces and also many new acquaintances. It was a diverse liberal crowd. I smiled at a man wearing a blue “I’m With Her” T-shirt in the line that snaked around behind me.

When I got to the registration table, an African American woman sitting behind the table gave me a smile when she heard me exchange names with the woman next to me  — someone in the neighborhood who I had never met before. In the hour in which we stood in line to vote — we discovered we had much in common. It was then I realized, this is like part in church where people pause and greet each other. The minister in my church calls it a “radical welcoming.”

When I joined the Unitarian Universalists several years ago, I quickly became a lay minister — called a worship associate in Unitarian lingo. As I recently explained to a vehemently atheist friend (there are many atheist Unitarians), my Unitarian Universalist experience has helped me learn about religion (I was raised secular), be open to people of all backgrounds and above all to underscore that no one group “owns” spirituality/religion.

Before I joined the Unitarians, I avoided religion all together since the religious right put me off — including the white Evangelicals who, according to The Huffington Post, voted for Trump, for the most part. They voted for him in record numbers based on hypocritical un-Christian hate filled values.

One of the epiphanies that I had in line at the polling place was that as a lifelong democrat, I have always voted, and I have voted for more than a few guys (and they were all guys) who I personally did not like. (President Obama was, in fact, the first candidate who I actually liked.) I have always strongly felt that there is a difference between the two major parties — enough of one that people’s lives will be affected.

Of course, this epiphany that I had at polling place the morning of the election was before we would see the devastating effects caused by people not voting.

If you stayed home and didn’t vote or effectively cast your lot for now President-elect Trump by voting for a third party — it is now time to wake up, suffer the consequences and step up to help those, especially the most vulnerable, who are now threatened by this administration. It’s time to cast away smugness and entitlement, and to put yourself on the line. Those (of all ages) who sat out the vote and are so apathetic they plan to do nothing are part of the problem.

As a practicing Buddhist, I meditate almost every morning. (The Unitarian faith includes and supports many spiritual paths.)

My emotions quickly cycled through me after the election results came in. On election day, spirits were high. After voting, I volunteered for the Democratic Party and went and knocked on doors. The people I talked to — almost all African Americans — had already voted. At the watch party (in my liberal neighborhood), I was stunned. By the following morning, I was devastated and depressed — so much so that I didn’t think I could get out of bed. But then I realized that anger was more healthy. Then for about two minutes, I felt deep grief — a necessary letting go and a relief — and returned to nothingness in my morning meditation.

Since then I keep going to back to anger.

Anger is linked to survival and I am blessed to have a strong streak of both. Perhaps it is my class background that makes me unafraid of my anger. I am the first in my family to have graduated from college and I have strong opinions (they may be different opinions from others from my class background but they are still strong). I am also a second-generation feminist and it may be my mother’s feminist rage (something I talk about in my book Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters).

I also am a lesbian-feminist who came of age under a fierce patriarchal system and I remember the quote from The Woman-Identified Woman By Radicalesbians:

 

“What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.”

I am empathetic but concerned about the stories I am hearing about people — especially young people— being emotionally stymied by sadness/devastation and fear. Vulnerability is a good thing but too much of it leaves us open to attack. Remember, they want us to be fearful.

When I heard a friend talking about a young gay man who said he felt like he should go back into the closet, my immediate response was, “NO! — We have to be more out than ever.”

I am with Senator Elizabeth Warren who said in an interview on the Rachel Maddow show that now is the time when “We stand up and we fight back.” She advised people to volunteer for the causes they care about, to stay connected, and to stand our ground.

Despite my spiritual beliefs or maybe because of them, I do not have any optimistic words about the future. I do not advocate acceptance and I do not buy into the theory that anything is “God’s will.”

But maybe it is the goddess in my heart that gives me joy when I see the protestors on the street (#NotMyPresident).

Now is the time to prepare for the worst (even as we may hope for the best). We have to be centered and strong — to fight for our own rights and to help those who need help.

As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

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Madame President – Sign Petition #StillWithHer #NotMyPresident

My partner, Barbara, glimpsed this Newsweek when it first was on the stands and has been looking for it ever since. Today we found it — behind other magazines on a rack at our local supermarket!

The Atlantic Monthly just reported that the votes are still being counted and that Hillary won the popular vote by one and a half million and the lead is growing with early voting still being tallied.

There is a petition at Change.org for the Electoral College (which votes on Dec 19th) to vote to make Hillary president.  To sign the petition, click here.

 

NEVER GIVE UP!

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“Stand up and fight back”– Elizabeth Warren #NotMyPresident

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Mantra For Victory For Hillary

We believe in you
You believe in us
Stronger together

LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Stay calm and get out the vote!

-message from Foxx

(Magic name for guess  who?     See the YouTube video below.)

 

 

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‘Shady’ And ‘Crooked’ — Sexist Slurs?

previously on The Huffington Post

Decades ago — in the eighties, when I was in my early twenties — a bumper sticker on my tan economy car read: “A Woman’s Place Is In The White House.”

Then one day after work I went out to the office parking lot and found that someone had taken a razor blade and cut out the word “White” so the bumper sticker read “A Woman’s Place Is In The … House.”

What I remember about the co-worker who I strongly suspected of doing this (but who never admitted it) was that he was extremely racist and sexist and that he was a closeted gay man who made hateful remarks about other gay people. His internalized self loathing frequently spilled outward at the people around him, and that included me.

Fast forward forty years and we have finally have a candidate who has a strong possibility of becoming our first woman president who I am supporting for many reasons — including the fact that she supports many of the same issues that I do, the U.S. Supreme Court appointees coming up in the next presidential term, and because she is a woman with lots of experience who is qualified to do the job.

Of course, it would help if the president had a Congress she could work with. The Pennsylvania (the state in which I live) Senate race between incumbent republican Pat Toomey and Katie McGinty has been in the national spotlight. As CBS News reports, the democrats need five seats to regain the senate — “four if they win the White House because a Vice President Tim Kane would break any 50-50 tie.”

I was familiar with this race because as a lifelong democrat, a progressive, a second-generation feminist(something I write about in my book Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters), and a member of the LGBT community, I’ve been itching to vote against Pat Toomey — who is conservative on the social issues that I take personally. I was also familiar with this race because of the nasty television commercials that Toomey has been running against McGinty — all of which have prompted me to say to my partner and to the television that “I can’t wait to vote against Toomey.”

Then I was driving one day when I heard an interview on the radio with Katie McGinty — and I liked what I heard. I liked her stance on the issues, her background, the fact that she was endorsed by Emily’s List, and that she talked about the women in the senate collaborating on the last budget crises and “getting the job done.” Then she added that “I hope to be privileged to join that group.”

After the interview, I realized that I would be voting for someone rather than just against someone in the Pennsylvania senate race.

Some of the negative ads run against Katie McGinty call her “shady” Katie. The parallel between this and “crooked” Hillary (which Hillary’s opponent calls her) left me fuming. Then one day I was sitting in a local eatery with my partner when another nasty television commercial against Katie McGinty came on. This time the word “trust” grabbed my full attention.

Could it be that someone is telling us that women are not trustworthy in political office because we have had 2,000 years of male leaders in the history of the world (and therefore the powers that be are telling us we can’t trust women)? Could this have something to do with the white, male, cowboy origins of this country?

My partner was casually keeping her eye on me. I have lost it several times during this election, and she is in the unusual situation of having to be the peacekeeper. Maybe I am being overly sensitive. There are some women on the right and left who act like sexism does not exist. I think they are in denial. But the most important issue in this election is whether we can choose the best candidate for the position — regardless of gender.

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Boo! Dumpty Trumpty — Halloween on my street #VoteBlue

 

 

This Halloween we handed out treats and talked to parents to find out if they were voting for Hillary.  We got more than a few vehement “yes” es and as one mother pointed out, “isn’t everyone on this street?” Even one of the little trick-or-treaters ran down the street yelling “Hill-a-ary — Hill-a-ry”!

 

As one of the father’s pointed out, he hopes this is as scary as it gets!

 

 

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