Items

• Black men/white men : a gay anthology
  A collection of forty poems, short fiction and non-fiction pieces which explore the intersections of race and sexuality “from the most scholarly to the most explicit”, by authors such as Langston Hughes, Eric Garber and Bruce Nugent. Contributions on sexual stereotyping, discrimination and anti-Black racism within the white gay community are interspersed with several high-quality monochrome photographs and drawings of gay men, both Black and white, pictured separately and in couples. Editor Michael J. Smith founded the advocacy organisation Black and White Men Together in 1980. Chapters sprung up in cities across the United States – there was even, briefly, a Dalston-Hackney branch in London – and the organisation continues today. Smith died of AIDS in 1989 aged 45.
• Cute : and other poems
  A collection of around thirty poems, many of which had previously appeared in gay publications such as ‘Fag Rag’ and ‘Gay Sunshine Journal’ as well as the avant-garde literary review ‘New – American and Canadian Poetry’. Everhard’s writing is moving, personal and direct. ‘For Marcie’ details the complicated feelings of the speaker on sleeping with a woman to whom he is unable to come out. ‘Reasons Why I Love You’ and ‘Enemy’ explore a love affair with a man named Richard – and its aftermath. The book’s cover features a drawing of a boy, face-on and in the foetal position, and on the inside flyleaf there is a sketch of a nude young man, all by Joe Fuoco. Born in 1946, Everhard died of AIDS in 1986.
• Gay fiction journal. No. 47 : anthology of fiction/poetry/prose
  ‘Gay Sunshine’ was published, in tabloid newspaper format, between 1970 and 1982. The first issues focussed on radical gay politics and liberation, but when Winston Leyland (1940-) became editor in 1971, he included an emphasis on literature. Leyland made the decision to publish this issue, which became the final one, in book format, as it was less ephemeral and easier to preserve than a newspaper. The issue contains poetry, fiction and prose, most of it previously unpublished, including the first English translation of Paul Verlaine’s story ‘A Draw’. The book also features illustrations, and the cover is by Joe Fuoco, who also illustrated other seized books, Gore Vidal’s ‘A Thirsty Evil’ and Jim Everhard’s ‘Cute’.
• Notes from a marriage : love poems
  Since the mid-1970s, the creative output of Gavin Geoffrey Dillard (1954-) has encompassed many forms including poetry, songwriting and acting in pornographic films. This poetry collection, Dillard’s third, explores the emotional and sexual relationship between two young men, with some undertones of violence. It was published in New York by Felice Picano’s Sea Horse Press. In 1988, Australian gay rights activist Dennis Altman described Dillard as “the laureate of the sensual”, while Dillard’s poetry forms the basis of Clint Borzoni’s 2014 opera ‘When Adonis Calls’. Today, Dillard self-publishes books under his Gavin Dillard Poetry Library & Archive imprint and recently produced a new text and photographic edition of ‘Notes from a Marriage’.
• Now the volcano : an anthology of Latin American gay literature
  Edited by Winston Leyland (1940-) and published by his Gay Sunshine Press imprint, this book is an anthology of short stories, poems, novel excerpts and a memoir, interspersed with illustrations. The collection presents a snapshot of gay male writing from Latin America, with an emphasis on Brazilian literature, which Leyland notes is the richest, including ‘Bom-Crioulo’ which was first published in 1895 (and which was also seized during ‘Operation Tiger’ as a separate title). The book’s title refers to Malcolm Lowry’s Mexican-set novel ‘Under the Volcano’. Translator Erskine Lane’s own novel, ‘Game-Texts – a Guatemalan Journal’, was also published by Gay Sunshine Press and seized during the raids.
• Straight hearts' delight : love poems and selected letters, 1947-1980
  Containing thirty years of poetry and numerous letters, this book relates the lives and works of two key figures of the Beat Generation. Documenting chronologically the relationship between Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010), the book is not only a record of their love but also of the milieu in which they lived and worked. The book contains previously unpublished poems and is illustrated, including with a Richard Avedon photograph of the authors naked. Edited by Winston Leyland, the authors were involved in the book’s production and contributed footnotes. As with many Gay Sunshine Press (and Fag Rag) publications, it was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency established by the US Congress.
• The disrobing : sex and satire
  Poet and author Royal Murdoch, known to friends as Kenneth, was born in California in 1898 and moved to Mexico City in the mid-1960s, where he died in 1981. ‘The Disrobing’, ten copies of which were seized in the ‘Operation Tiger’ raids, is a posthumously published collection spanning fifty years, including poetry, diary extracts, letters and part of an unfinished novel. It was edited by Gay Sunshine’s Winston Leyland. Murdoch himself wrote of ‘Gay Sunshine Journal’ that “I was already an old man when I first saw an issue” and “each issue brings me a renewed sense of liberation”. Murdoch’s prose works in particular describe life in pre-Stonewall America. His papers are now held by the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
• Treasures of the night : the collected poems
  A collection of six long poems by Jean Genet (1910-1986), first published between 1942 and 1948. They are presented here in a bilingual French/English version for the first time by translator Steven Finch, with the authorisation of Jean Genet and publisher, Éditions Gallimard. The French original occupies the verso (left hand side) and the English is printed on the recto (right hand side) in a facing page layout. Finch describes Genet’s poems as “a rich contribution to the expression of the gay movement and spirit”. This edition also includes the cover artwork of the rare first edition of Genet’s ‘Poèmes’, published by L’Arbalète in 1948, as well as striking, graphic black-and-white drawings by Bill Sullivan.
• What Dillinger meant to me
  This poetry collection from Robert Peters (1924-2014), his eighteenth, contains a mix of new poems and some that were published in earlier books and little magazines, such as ‘The Berkeley Poetry Review’. This volume is autobiographical, focussing on the poet’s childhood, family and society in rural Wisconsin during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The American gangster John Dillinger was involved in a shootout in the nearby Little Bohemia Lodge – his image adorned the young Peters’s bedroom wall, and he appears throughout this collection. Peters’s burgeoning sexuality is explored in poems such as ‘Tommy McQuaker’, about a local gay man who defiantly “walked like a woman down Main Street”, inspiring both fear and desire. Published by the Sea Horse Press, the book is dedicated to Peters’s parents.