Sexile = Sexilio

By Jimmy Lam

This book is a collection of poetry, memoires, essays, literary criticisms, and short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543421774

Jimmy Lam

Jimmy Lam writes poetry, short stories, cultural and international political analysis and essays. He studied Medicine, Political Science and Modern Languages & International Relations at the UASD and City College in NY. Presently, Jimmy alternates between writing and the decorative arts/modern antiques. His work has appeared in the Internet (Cielo Naranja.com & Dominican Today.com) in Santo Domingo and in New York. His literature appeared in several anthologies: Antologia de la Literatura Gay (2004); The Best of Panic (2010); Mujeres de Palabra (2010), Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance (2010) & From Macho to Mariposa (2011). Of 2 Worlds (a video about his life) was screened in 2012 at NYU. After a long sexile that took him through Montreal, Oxford and New York he finally settled in Florida where he continues to write his interminable memoires: Neurosis of my Own.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Jimmy Lam.

Front Cover Model and Picture by: Oskar Torres

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017907205

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5434-2179-8

                Softcover       978-1-5434-2178-1

                eBook             978-1-5434-2177-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/08/2017

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Contents

Preface

Prólogo

Notes

Poetry

Out of the Morning Blues

Lecciones

Silence on 1⁴th Street

El Carnaval en el Ojo de Mi Dulce Marido

The BerryBoat

Pero Otra Canción de Amor?

Mi Canción Ven Sida

A fin de cuentas

Things I have learned in the last 1092 days

6 West ⁶th. St. PH. 6

Para Oskar

La Reina del Carmelita

Hopkins Avenue Studio

I couldn’t sing the body electric

Improvising for Kade (on our 1⁰th anniversary)

Atripla-101

The Boys from El Conde

Other Works

¿Amar a otra mujer? ¡Sí! ¿Amar a otro hombre, por qué no?

¿Existe una literatura gay dominicana?

A Propósito de Bolitas

Para Comerte Mejor…

A Propósito del Placer: Apuntes sobre la Sexualidad y el Erotismo en la Poesía de la Mujer Dominicana en la diáspora de los EEUU

Bibliografía

In remembrance of Berth

Recordando a Mélida García.

Short Stories

Illuminated

Over a Simple Cup of Tea

Midnite Waters

Al Cuello

Acerca del Autor

No seremos machos pero somos muchas!

Refrán Dominicano

La moderación es fatal. Nada crea más éxito que los escándalos.

Oscar Wilde

Love is profoundly political

bell hooks

Dedicatoria en orden histórico:

Para: Australia, Yelidá, Osiris, Félix, Kade, Oskar, & A.T.G.

Dedication (in historical order):

For: Australia, Yelidá, Osiris, Felix, Kade, Oskar, & A.T.G.

Acknowledgments

To Lidell Jackson (who published my first short story in the US back in 1993 in Colours Magazine); Charlie Vasquez (who single-handedly spearheaded my writing dreams to a new level); Charlie Rice Gonzales (for great editorial and listening gifts); Miguel Mena from CieloNaranja.com (for taking the plunge and open Cielonaranja.com to my neurosis); the women poets from NY especially to Yvelise Fanith and Karina Rieke (who once told me to: "Go home to write! Keep on writing!"); Traz@rte (for paving the road back into the Dominican community in the diaspora and allowing me to follow their prints); thanks for Cosette Alvarez for her copy editing; to Margarita Cordero and Elsa Exposito in Santo Domingo (for allowing me access to El Nuevo Diario editorial pages to get published in Santo Domingo in the 80s); to my beloved friends (and you know who you are!) and finally to all the women and men who have populated my imagination and my pelvic inspirations, but not necessarily in that order!

Agradecimientos

A Margarita Cordero y Elsa Expósito en Santo Domingo por proveerme acceso a las paginas editoriales de El Nuevo Diario en los 80’s; a Lidell Jackson (quien publicó mi primer cuento a mi llegada a USA en el 1993 en Colours Magazine); a Charlie Vásquez (quien de un día para otro convirtió mis sueños literarios en pura realidad); a Charlie Rice Gonzales (por sus dotes editoriales y realmente escuchar mi voz); a Miguel Mena (por lanzarse al vacío mientras me abría las ventanas del mundo cibernético para compartir mis neurosis a través de las paginas de Cielonaranja.com); a las mujeres poetas de NY especialmente a Yvelisse Fanith y Karina Rieke (quien me ordenó, en una ocasión, que me fuera a mi casa y me pusiera escribir y que dejara la vagabundería); gracias a Cosette Alvarez por la magnífica corrección de estilo; a Traz@rte por abrirme los amplios y pavorosos caminos, caminar sobre sus huellas y re-encontrarme con la comunidad Dominicana en la diáspora de NY); a mis amig@s (ustedes saben quiénes son, no necesito nombrarles); y finalmente a todos los hombres y mujeres anónimos/as que han poblado mi imaginación y mis inspiraciones pélvicas aunque no necesariamente en ese orden!

Preface

Mostly, I am a poet of witness. Being a poet of witness is defined by D. Ray* as: Those who write poetry that transcends the purely personal or the purely political and operates at their intersection. This is a type of poetry that exists in a space of Resistance and re-orients points of view toward new ways of seeing and speaking. C. Forché* elaborates further: These are poets who, endured conditions of historical and social extremity during the 20th Century through exile….."

My first poem appeared in the Episcopal Church bulletin when I was ten years old. Since then my literature has evolved: in the choosing of the topics, in the range and openness of my language, experimentation and style. Writing became an integral part of my witnessing the times and changes opening society in the lives I have lived. This priceless experience is now available in black & white in this collection.

Those experiences lived with intensity have inspired and outraged me. The marks left by those emotions are now collected in these pages. They cover forty years defending sexual freedom & sexual human rights. I believe my literature represents what the French call a piecé de resistance. These words: poems, essays, short-stories, interview and memoires are my gift to living truthfully; by default they represent a defiant response to my identity by birth: Dominicanness.

However, it is homosexuality, a concept invented to turn men who love other men into mentally ill individuals, what defines me*. I have been writing to confront hate and the phobia of the common sense. The belief that we are sick, criminals* or sinful perverts inspires me. Therefore love poems celebrating the sexuality of homos become an inoculation against the haters; short stories about men loving each other tell our stories as they are nothing less, nothing more. Memoires to remember and praise the contribution of LGBTQ men and women are a vaccine against the illness we are meant to carry.

A body of work carried and written throughout two countries and four decades, some published, others inédit until now is finally printed here. These works needed to be collected and read together so the perspective is clearer, the message powerful; my defiance to Dominicanness is now indelible.

Sexile* is the best name for this compilation. For years I lived in an internal exile: unrecognized or invisible within the Dominican culture that ostracized us. I did not have a choice but to escape the invisibility. Irony of destiny: once out of the country I realized I was also living within another exile. The LGBTQ community in the US would not embrace me. Being a poor, undocumented immigrant of color excised me out of their subculture. We were anonymous. Worst, a questioning homosexual like me, is in serious trouble within the already established LGBTQ society. I feel like a Matrioshka a doll contained inside many others which get smaller and smaller as they go inside each other. Maybe I have been living in an infinite exile. However, changes happen……

*Sexile as defined by M. Guzman refers to the exile of those who had to leave their nations of origin on account of their sexual orientation.

Prólogo

Me considero como un poeta de testimonio. Lo que así me define proviene de las consideraciones de D. Ray*: aquellos que escriben poesía que trasciende lo puramente personal o lo puramente político y cuya escritura opera en la intersección de ambos. Mr. Ray explica que este tipo de poesía es la que existe dentro de un espacio de resistencia y re-orienta el punto de vista estético hacia nuevas formas de ver y escribir. Abundo en la definición. C. Forché* elabora la noción de poesía de testimonio para incluir aquellos poetas que sufrieron la exclusión social e histórica durante el siglo XX, ya sea a través del exilio…

Mi primer poema apareció