GLR May-June 2023

closely tethered to their earlier successes. Albright’s late “Ver monter” portraits and Olsen’s continuation and reworking of the book Yonnondio: From the Thirties show intense focus upon re iteration and perfection of previous work rather than on nov elty—which was, after all, a tenet of Modernism. Herring doesn’t address that conundrum, alas, but one real possibility might be that the LGBT elders had more contact with younger artists rather than just younger medical and caregiving people. Certainly Ford did, living and working with Indra, who was generations younger. And Steward, until his final years, was eager to meet younger gay men in the arts and to remain au courant . Mabel Hampton’s involvement with Joan Nestle and other ’70s and ’80s women might have been different in kind from her earlier contacts with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and others of the Harlem Renaissance, but she ap proached both with the same passion and dedication. Only Barnes, who had seemingly closed herself off from everyone in her reclusive Patchin Place flat, limited her contact with the out side world and its new artistic possibilities. Herring doesn’t evaluate or critique the new work but does give examples, leaving issues of quality open. Even so, it’s heart ening to this member of the current, HIV-decimated, senior gay artist cohort to find a book like Herring’s strongly advocating for more attention being paid to what older artists are up to. Gay life is, after all, believed to be too focused on youth. But Herring doesn’t always get motives correct. He ascribes Ford’s com plaints about not having lovers to old age. The truth is that Ford had been a great beauty in his time. Henri Cartier-Bresson fa mously photographed him exiting a Paris pissoir—next to an ad with a tongue pointing to where Charles was buttoning his fly. Even in his mid-eighties, Ford was a looker, his blue eyes still luminous. Like any beauty, he expected absolute adoration, which was no longer forthcoming. And yet, in a perfect, non-ageist world, he would have received it. ____________________________________________________ Felice Picano’s latest book is A Bard on Hercular . Heaven Caught unawares but still breathing, We ascend on clouds With all the other faithful departed human remains. Once there, it’s a kind of white torture— The sort they apply in Bolivia, Iran, and the USA. Except that we are never alone, Always in his presence. The urge to confess becomes overwhelming. The urge to confess anything. And the silence is overwhelming. You could almost wish the FBI were pumping music in— Nancy Sinatra, Mitch Miller, Tibetan monks— The kind designed to drive you out. J AMES D UFFICY

A MERICAN POET Charles Henri Ford (1908–2002) and his “surrogate son” Indra Tamang share a chapter in Scott Herring’s intriguing, fact-filled, opinion-strewn book of bio-criticism, Aging Moderns: Art, Literature, and the Experi ment of Later Life , which focuses on six 20th-century Modernist artists and writers. Among the others he includes are poet and novelist Djuna Barnes (1892–1982), writer and sex diarist Samuel Steward (1909–1993), and “lesbian elder” of the Harlem Renaissance Mabel Hampton (1902–1989). Two additional chap ters are devoted to the magic realist painter Ivan Albright (1897– 1983) and writer Tillie Olsen 1912–2007). It is a peculiar accident of birth year and residence that this writer got to meet the four openly gay subjects (Barnes, Ford, Steward, and Hampton). I came to know Charles well enough for him to call himself my “Gay Mother,” and Sam Steward well enough for him to show me his special wrist tattoo. AGING MODERNS Art, Literature, and the Experiment of Later Life by Scott Herring Columbia Univ. Press. 288 pages, $30. F ELICE P ICANO Surviving Modernism

Herring is clear about what he means by “Modernism.” As the Godmother of the movement, Gertrude Stein said “Make it new.” That meant fearless experimentation, deriving meaning or even non-meaning from new pathways followed for art’s sake. Following that credo, all six of his subjects not only were suc cessful Modernists during the first half of the 20th century— Modernism’s glory years—but they continued to be Modernists in the last decades of the century and even into the 21st century. Barnes’ short late poems (found among an unsorted mass of junk and first thought to be typed household and shopping lists), Stew ard’s late, unconventional mystery novels starring his old pals Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Charles Henri Ford’s 5000 “new” haiku and collages, and Mabel Hampton’s role in the Les bian Herstory Archives—all speak to how they worked through the many physical and mental limitations that old age presents to develop unexpected and unprecedented art. By contrast, Ivan Albright and Tillie Olsen continued to be Charles Henri Ford exiting a Paris pissoir, 1935. Henri Cartier-Bresson photo.

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