David Hatfield Sparks

Princes & Pumpkins (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The poems of David Hatfield Sparks resonate with the rise of the postmodern, multicultural, LGBTQ and feminist political and spiritual movements. Inspired by Walt Whitman, H.D., Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and his close friend Gloria Anzalda, and drawing upon ancient and indigenous mythologies and spiritualities, together with magical practices, a passion for Nature, and a delight in Camp, Sparks seeks to trace the multilayered, multidimensional, at times nostalgic, at times wild and defiant, spiritual journey of a Queer mystic. The poems in this collection follow a dream-like chronology of responses to events in his life and in the lives of others he has known. Not ignoring the shadows, he acknowledges the suffering inflicted by those men and women who have condemned Queer identity and practices, such as his parenting of his daughter Mariah. By means of a revolutionary spirituality, he is determined to transform suffering into liberation and enlightenment. The poems are organized into three sections. Those of the first section, "Prequel," are drawn from the pre-Stonewall, bohemian, struggling life of a married "hippie" that culminates in the birth of a magical child. The second section, "Personas," delves into the complexities of what Sparks calls "gay being and becoming" that includes the construction, dismantling, and reconstruction of the many masks and identities gay/Queer men have worn and inhabit: sissy, artist, monk, trickster, rebel. This theme continues in the third section, "Parables," but herein the poet excavates language and images from deeper psychic levels in a profound spiritual exploration, mirroring Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," that confronts and reinvents religious Queer-relevant symbols and myths in the forms of elegies, dirges, ritual dramas and chants, in an intoxicating brew that delights.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Xlibris US
• Seitenzahl: 82
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. Juli 2013
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781483653464
• Artikelnr.: 52540739

Autorenporträt

David Hatfield Sparks, M.M., M.L.I.S., is a writer, composer, ethnomusicologist, and librarian. Sparks began writing and performing in the late 1960s (poetry, theater, music) in Indiana, Ohio, and New York City. A more intense period of creativity followed in the late 1970s, when he joined in rag-tag performances of the multicultural LGBTQ art community that played a significant part in San Francisco's "cultural worker" movement, fostered by radical Queer, Leftist artists. His first published poems appeared in the radical Boston underground publication Fag Rag (no. 25) in 1979. Together with his partner, Randy P. Conner, his close friend Gloria Anzaldúa, and other writers and artists affiliated with the El Mundo Zurdo poetry reading series, he performed in the early 1980s at the independent bookstore Small Press Traffic in San Francisco's Noe Valley district and at other venues including the Valencia Rose Café and the Women's Building. He contributed to Queer-focused anthologies and organized Queer poetry events in Austin, Texas, where he obtained a Master's in Ethnomusicology. His work has appeared in various scholarly journals and anthologies. He is the co-author of the Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit (Cassell, 1997) and of Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions (Haworth/Routledge, 2004). His personal/political essay "Hecklers and Christians" appeared in the anthology First Person Queer: Who we are (so far) in 2007. Recently, his mythobiographical poem "The Birth of Xochiquetzal at 948 Noe St." appeared in 2012 in the Goddess-centered anthology, She is Everywhere (vol. 3).