Bøker av Jane Byers

Jane Byers' Acquired Community is both a collection of narrative poems about seminal moments in North American lesbian and gay history, mostly post-World War II, and a series of first person poems that act as a touchstone to compare the narrator's coming out experience within the larger context of the gay liberation movement. The "parade" poems such as "Celebration Was a Side Effect, 1992" explores the important role parades have played in the queer movement and how they have transformed from activism to celebration. "St Patrick's Day Parade, 2014" takes the Boston St. Patrick's Day committee's homophobia to task, reminding us that this is not ancient history, but an ever-transforming experience. In her long poem, "Keen," Byers imagines a dialogue between a young queer university student and Michael Lynch, an AIDS activist, poet and scholar who helped found many gay community institutions. In this compelling poem we are reminded that the AIDS epidemic had a rippling effect, touching the lives of everyone within the gay community and well beyond. In this second book by Byers her poems go beyond the historical perspective of LGBT rights and are living examples of progress. Acquired Community examines and celebrates community resilience.

In her first full collection of poetry, Jane Byers explores her personal experience with resilience, beginning with her own difficult birth, which she describes as inoculation against despair. As a young adult, the writer moves from complicity and its illusion of power to building a pliant self. Byers turns an unflinching eye to parenthood, as the mother of adopted twins, and examines the workplace through the eyes of a female safety specialist working alongside firefighters, transportation crews and heavy equipment purchasers. The author draws on the steeling effects of being queer to imbue her children and injured workers with suppleness. Steeling Effects asks whether what doesnt kill you makes you stronger and lives its way into the pliant beauty that gratitude affords.