English and Welsh language poets from Wales

In the *eighteen-nineties, before the trial of *Oscar Wilde in 1895, homoerotic poems were written by *J. Le Gay Brereton, the first Professor of English at the University of Sydney and formerly the University Librarian; he seems to have been homosexual for part of his life at least (he later married a woman) and probably *bisexual overall. He was also a *critic who was fascinated by the gay poet *Christopher Marlowe. *Mateship was a strong force with homosexual undertones in Brereton's poetry and in that of other 1890s poets such as *Henry Lawson and *Victor Daley. Many *ballads—poems which circulated orally—were written around this theme.

The first known poem referring to physical male homosexuality was written by *Christopher Brennan (written sometime after 1914 in a copy of *Oscar Wilde and Myself by *Alfred Douglas); it still remains a revolutionary homosexual poem in English. *C. J. Dennis, author of a popular sequence about a bashful bridegroom, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915), may have been gay. The novelist *Martin Boyd, who was probably homosexual, wrote homoaffectional verse while at *Cambridge University in Great Britain in the early part of the twentieth century. The *Nobel Prize winning homosexual novelist *Patrick White commenced his career at this time with a volume of love poems published in 1935; he has had a brilliant biographer in *David Marr. *William Blocksidge, a poet and philosopher, may have written a *lost book of *pederastic verse. In 1941, Charles Rischbieth Jury published the first work in poetry to openly deal with homosexual love, the verse drama, Icarius.

Homosexual *bawdry is only documented from the 1950s and, due to *censorship, the first openly published homopoem, by *Robert Adamson, was only published in 1971. (For laws restricting homosexuality see *Law— English). Consenting male homosexual acts became partly legal in the state of South Australia first in 1972 and later in other states; only in 1997 were male homosexual acts legalized in Tasmania (for males over seventeen; legal ages of sexual consent vary from state to state being mostly 16 and 17). In 1964 *Laurence Collinson left the country to live in London where he wrote fine openly gay poetry. Around 1971 the underground poem describing gay sex, The *Platonic Blow (later sourced to *W. H. Auden), was published in Australia, as an attack on the censorship laws; it received wide currency.

The *Songs of the Gay Liberation Quire (1986), compiled and partly written by *Paul Van Reyk, is a selection of this choir's protest *songs. The first *Aids anthology in the world was the Australian anthology *Love and Death (1987), edited by the fine gay poet *Denis Gallagher who published the *long gay poem Making Do in Sydney in the early eighties. *Sydney, the largest city and capital of the state of New South Wales, has had an active gay movement since 1970. An annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade in February or March, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators, many from overseas is a focus of gay culture. The novelist *David Malouf published a masterly gay love sequence in 1976 and an outstanding recent poet is *David Herkt. An important but little known contemporary poet is the formerly *Adelaide based *Mikol Furneaux.

The gay literary *journal *Cargo was founded in 1987 by the leading gay male *publisher of the country, *Laurin McKinnon. The anthology of prose and poetry, male and female, *Pink Ink (1991), shows a move towards *queer poetry (of whom outstanding examples are the openly *bisexual *Michael Dargaville and *Tim McCann). The *Melbourne based *Javant Biarujia is a *post modernist poet; his partner *Ian Birks has also written gay poems. Some recent poems of *Stephen Williams are also outstanding. *Queer poetry, a newer movement, is also represented by the selection in *Robert Dessaix's mixed poetry and prose anthology Australian Gay and Lesbian Writing (1993).
*Michael Hurley has written an outstanding Guide to Lesbian and Gay Writing in Australia which includes poets. The world's largest dictionary of sexual *words in English is being compiled in Sydney by *Gary Simes. The author of this Encyclopedia, *Paul Knobel, is also a poet and has written a survey of homosexual poetry, Male Homosexuality and Australian English Language Poetry published in 1999.

See the *Overview—English in Great Britain entry for the background prior to 1788 and the influence of British material. The *Overview—English in the United States entry is also relevant from *Whitman onwards (from 1855) and especially from gay liberation in 1969.

The first poets of relevance so far known date only from the nineteenth century and include *Tom MacInnes, *Bliss Carman, *E. J. Pratt and *Frank Call. The homosexual poet *Walt Whitman had a Canadian disciple in *R. M. Bucke who published the first detailed biography of Whitman in 1883, as well as writing a mystical work which prefigured the ideas of *gay liberation. R. M. Bucke also edited Whitman's letters to *Peter Doyle published in 1897.

*Oscar Wilde and *Edward Carpenter were visitors to Canada; indeed Oscar Wilde's first lover and close friend *Robert Ross was born in the major Canadian city, *Toronto. The Canadian *Henry S. Saunders was an important *collector of Whitman material as well as compiling Parodies of Walt Whitman (1923), a defacto gay anthology.

In the first half of the twentieth century, *John Glassco wrote poetry on the *decadent model. *Patrick Anderson wrote gay poems from the early 1950s. He later went on to compile the outstanding English language anthology *Eros: An Anthology of Friendship, after leaving the country to live in Great Britain. Canadian gay culture, despite being overshadowed by that of the United States, was strong from the beginnings of the *gay liberation period (1969+), and especially in the 1970s. This period has seen a large number of openly gay poets. The major poet *Earle Birney even changed a word in a previously published poem in 1975 because of concern about the meaning of the word *gay. This period saw the founding of the important gay political and cultural *journal The *Body Politic (1971–87) published in Toronto, a major city of gay activism. *Montreal, in French speaking Canada, the country's second biggest city, also has English speakers and an achive of gay material.

The poet *Ian Young, though of British citizenship, has been mainly resident in Canada; he conducted a fine review column for The Body Politic and compiled the first gay liberation poetry anthology *The Male Muse published in 1973 and the bibliography *The Male Homosexual in Literature in (1975; expanded edition 1982). The first edition includes Canadian bibliographical entries. Ian Young was also a publisher and helped the work of many poets get into print through his printing press, *Catalyst. *bill bissett (who spells his name in lower case) has been associated with poetry activities in *Vancouver (the major west coast city at the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean and with links to the east). There has been a strong radical streak in Canadian gay poets: see *anarchism, *Marxism.

The *Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto has been the source of two major gay bibliographies, both titled *Homosexuality in Canada (1979; second edition 1984; further additions) and both listing poets, the first being annotated; they constitute the finest bibliographic record of gayness in a nation. The Archives contains unpublished *manuscripts and has finally in 2005 been granted a permanent headquarters helped by the city of Toronto. *E. A. Lacey was an outstanding recent poet, one of the finest English language gay liberation poets, who has, however, like many Canadian gay poets, lived much of his life away from Canada, in south America and south-east Asia in particular. Similarly, *Daryl Hine, writer of an outstanding *long poem, has long been resident in the United States.

The poetry of the Elizabethan poets *Spenser, *Sidney, *Dyer and *Greville has strong homosexual undercurrents; in the theater the apparently homosexual couple *Francis Beaumont and *Thomas Fletcher wrote verse plays (their sexuality was first discussed by the first English biographer to mention homosexuality, *John Aubrey). Licensing of book publishing at this time led to the beginnings of *censorship which has plagued British English language gay poetry. After 1620, when many Puritans emigrated to what was to later become the United States, the English poetry heritage spread to north America as did *Puritanism, an anti-sexual and anti-pleasure movement in the Christian church, one of main inhibiting factors operating against the writing of open homosexual poetry besides anti-gay laws.

The *Rubaiyat of *Omar Khayyam, translated into English by *Edward Fitzgerald from a Cambridge manuscript, made available in 1859 a Persian homopoet. It was widely read, though it has been erroneously heterosexualized in illustration; the text, in referring to the male cupbearer uses the non gender specific “thou” so it could pass as a heterosexual work to those unfamiliar with the homosexual Persian conventions (a strategy which was to be widely used by gay poets from this time on). The homosexual poet *Beddoes committed *suicide in exile in Switzerland at this time. The *Catholic Jesuit priest *Gerard Manley Hopkins, who strongly identified with *Walt Whitman, wrote some homoerotic poems. It seems he fell in love with the poet *Digby Dolben whose poetry is much stronger homoerotically than Hopkins and who died tragically early. The sublimated gay *Cardinal John Henry Newman also wrote poetry and is buried in a grave with his closest male friend. In this period *Swinburne wrote the first English poems directly inspired by homosexual *sado-masochism; *Henry Layng wrote sadistic poems with homosexual undertones in the century prior.

The pre-Raphaelites, such as *Dante Gabriel Rossetti, exhibited *androgyny in their poetry and the anonymous 1866 poem *Don Leon is a defence of homosexuality showing that, despite the repression of the *Victorian period, it continued to flourish. From this time gay erotic *publishers existed in London.
The Aesthetic Movement and the 1890s. *Walter Pater and French *influence heralded the advent of the *aesthetic movement in the 1880s, culminating in the *decadent movement whose best exemplar is the poet and playwright *Oscar Wilde (who was imprisoned for two years for homosexuality in 1895 and emerged from prison a broken man). Around 1881 *Count Eric Stenbock published an openly gay book of love poems and, from 1877, *Henry Spencer Ashbee published the fruits of his serious study of sexual books in English (and, incidently, European gay culture).

The *eighteen-nineties saw a dramatic increase in homosexual poetry. The first English gay *journals, *The Spirit Lamp (1892–93)—edited by Wilde's lover *Lord Alfred Douglas—and *The Chameleon (1894) appeared in this period. The poetry of the eighteen-nineties was frequently guilt ridden and religiously based. Many poets—such as *John Gray and *Lionel Johnson—went into the *Catholic Church following Cardinal Newman (who had converted from the Church of England), as did the intriguing figure of *Frederick Rolfe (who called himself Baron Corvo as well as Father Rolfe), a *pederast who died in *Venice. Oscar Wilde's Poems (1881) show he started life as an aspiring poet. His most famous poem, however, is his widely translated *Ballad of Reading Goal (1898) about his experiences in Reading prison 1895–97. He had sued Alfred Douglas's father for calling him a sodomite (that is, for libel) and lost, leading to his being charged with consorting with male prostitutes (which evidence emerged in the libel trial). The bookseller *Christopher Millard's 1914 bibliography of Wilde's works remains to this day an exemplary listing of a gay poet and writer and has set a high standard for gay bibliographies of individual writers. The mood of the period after Wilde's trial in 1895 is expressed by *A. E. Housman in A Shropshire Lad (1896), which has remained a continuously popular work, its maudlin quality appealing to repressed homosexuals.

*J. A. Symonds in A Problem in Greek Ethics published in 1883 revealed the Greek homosexual literary traditon and inaugurated the serious study of gay culture in English. *Benjamin Jowettt's translation of *Plato's dialogues, the first complete English translation from the Greek, also revealed the heritage of ancient Greek homosexuality to readers. *Havelock Ellis in Sexual Inversion (1897; revised and enlarged third edition 1915) began the serious study of gay culture overall—though the banning of this book in Great Britain denied gay cultural history to British gays, who for the next eighty years lived in ignorance of their history. (Since British copyright laws extended to fomer colonies this efffectively denied Australian, Indian, South African and New Zealand gays their history, too; the work was published freely in the United States in *Philadelphia.) *Charles Ricketts was noted for his fine bindings of poetry books, a feature of the nineties. A group of English poets, the *Uranians, who have been discussed in detail by *Timothy d'Arch Smith, wrote pederastic verse from 1890 to 1930: see, for example, *E. E. Bradford, *D. W. Cory, *J. G. Nicholson. They reveal a *pederastic and *pedophile underground which continues to this day, which has been savagely repressed on occasions.

The influence of the major United States gay poet, *Walt Whitman, becomes apparent from the 1880s on. He especially influenced *Edward Carpenter who published the first modern surviving indigenous English language anthology *Ioläus: An Anthology of *Friendship in 1902, published simultaneously in London, *Manchester, the second largest city in Great Britain, and *Boston; it has remained almost continuously in print in the United States and Great Britain and been nicknamed “the bugger’s Bible”. The rise of *socialism, a movement which shows homosexual feeling, parallels Whitman's influence.

*F. E. Murray in 1924 compiled the first catalog of a *bookseller and also the first separate book length *bibliography ever of gay books in English. *Roger Goodland's 1931 annotated Bibliography of Sex Rites and Customs is still a major source for homosexual poetry in cultures all over the world; the author wrote only this one book and worked on it for many years. *Surrealism was a major movememt in the 1930s extending to poetry: see *Dylan Thomas (who had a homosexual relationship with *Oswell Blakeston) and *David Gascoyne (who later married a woman). *W. H. Auden was the outstanding traditional poet of the period 1930–60 but he lived in the United States from 1939; his *long poem *The Platonic Blow (published in 1965, but written in 1948) revealed a startlingly different homosexual side while “Lay your sleeping head” widely regarded as the finest love poem in English was written to a 14 year old youth, though Auden had to employ the “you” strategy used by Fitzgerald in the Rubaiyat; his close friend *Stephen Spender wrote gay poetry in the 1930s but later married a woman.

The works of such major poets as the Welshman *David Jones and the Mercian poet *Geoffrey Hill and the *poet laureate *Ted Hughes warrant perusal. The *poet laureate *John Betjeman and the playwright *Noel Coward have both written charming and outstanding gay poems which will last. *William Plomer, though homosexual, mostly concealed it in his poetry, though clues were left for astute readers. *Ralph Chubb secretly produced his mostly awful but sometimes inspiring pederastic poetry in illustrated copies in small editions from 1924 to 1960.

After World War II a flood of *translation from such diverse languages as Arabic, Chinese, Persian and Turkish has appeared and English has the richest translation tradition of all written languages.

In the contemporary period a major gay British poet is *James Kirkup, a poem of whose was the subject of a court case by the journal *Gay Times (when he alleged in the poem that *Jesus Christ was a homosexual). (The ensuing controversy bankrupted the paper.) James Kirkup has written a fine series of autobiographies and has lived abroad for much of his life, mainly in Japan after the Gay Times controversy. *Ivor Treby is also a major contemporary gay British poet while the outstanding *Scots poet *Edwin Morgan is only one of a number of poets in the first English and Gaelic anthology from Scotland, *And Thus Will I Freely Sing (1989). There are also fine *Irish and *Welsh gay poets writing in English.

Of recent anthologies, the anthology *Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches (1989) is exemplary for its subtle reading of the poetry of World War One and *Language of Water, Language of Fire (1992) is an outstanding general gay anthology. Attention is being increasingly paid to individual periods such as, for the Elizabethan period (see *Alan Bray, *Gregory W. Bredbeck, *Bruce R. Smith), the *Victorian period (see *Richard Dellamora) and the *twentieth century (see *Gregory Woods). *Gay News (1972–83) was the major journal of the *gay liberation period (1969+) with outstanding poetry and literary coverage; its successor *Gay Times has good book reviews.

Fine biographies are being written— e.g., *Peter Parker's on *A. J. Ackerley and *Philip Hoare's on *Stephen Tennant, the *lover of Siegfried Sassoon. These followed the 1967 biography by *Michael Holroyd who openly discussed the homosexuality of the *Bloomsbury prose writer *Lytton Strachey (who nevertheless wrote a brilliant gay poem on an envelop to his lover *Roger Senhouse). The poet *John Fuller has published outstanding readings of the poems of *W. H. Auden many of which have esoteric meanings.