Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.
Pride Month
by Shelley Wong
It is June & I read about having grace to forgive those
who would condemn us. It is June & a man reads a poem
where the father becomes a dying stag
& the son says there is something
I need to tell you. It was June when I was awake
past midnight gathering news
about the Pulse nightclub shooting. I fell asleep
knowing I would wake to walk against grief
in waves. It is June & I am happy
that Tegan & Sara will appear
in San Francisco or Oakland.
It is June & I have never prayed to any god.
It was New York in the 2000s
when my ex ran the backstage chaos
at the Pride pier dance. We slid through
a sea of men with shaved chests.
The songs hardly had words & the bass
shuddered into our bodies. Fireworks
climaxed over the Hudson & the crowd rocked
& roared back. I stood in a tropical sundress in the VIP section
surrounded by so many barely dressed people
double-kissing my face saying happy Pride
& where is your wife—
Copyright © 2021 by Shelley Wong. Used with the permission of the author. Originally published in the Kenyon Review Online in February 2018.
About the Author
Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears (YesYes Books, 2022), winner of the 2019 Pamet River Prize, and the chapbook RARE BIRDS (Diode Editions, 2017). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, and The New Republic. She has received a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from MacDowell, Kundiman, and Vermont Studio Center. She is an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and lives in San Francisco. For more: www.shelley-wong.com
2021 Queer Poem a Day
- Day 1: Pride Month by Shelley Wong
- Day 2: Is This or Is This True as Happiness by Derrick Austin
- Day 3: Nature Poem by Sam Herschel Wein
- Day 4: Ana I Don’t Forget by Gala Mukomolova
- Day 5: Eavesdropping on Adam and Eve by Andrea Cohen
- Day 6: Billow of Thistles by Ruben Quesada
- Day 7: Prayer for My Trans Siblings by H. Melt
- Day 8: Summer by Chen Chen
- Day 9: Embers by Henri Cole
- Day 10: Male Beauty by Richie Hofmann
- Day 11: [unsent draft] by Rachel Mennies
- Day 12: Forty by Julia Guez
- Day 13: Of Contour, of Cadence by Phillip B. Williams
- Day 14: The Men We Loved by Cyril Wong
- Day 15: Riding the Bus Back to Oxford by Catherine Pond
- Day 16: The Window by Jay Besemer
- Day 17: Want Could Kill Me by Xandria Phillips
- Day 18: What a Waste by Jill McDonough
- Day 19: Eros by Randall Mann
- Day 20: An Act by Michael M. Weinstein
- Day 21: Things I Didn’t Do With this Body and Things I Did by Amanda Gunn
- Day 22: Puzzle Pieces by D. A. Powell
- Day 23: Duplicity by Jameson Fitzpatrick
- Day 24: Is It True All Legends Once Were Rumors by Carl Phillips
- Day 25: High School Sleepovers with Straight Girls by Julian Guy
- Day 26: Abu Nuwas by Kazim Ali
- Day 27: Observation Car by Lauren Clark
- Day 28: Love Song by Eileen Myles
- Day 29: Donuts by Dan Kraines
- Day 30: The Lone Palm by Jenny Johnson
Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.
