GLR May-June 2024

own times. This exciting feature enhances the timeliness of the book. A sense of ongoing conversation is fostered also by two roundtables conducted in Spring 2021, in which several Kessler awardees discuss the histories and current thinking on topics of queer and trans activism and scholarship. One signal accomplishment of this important anthology is its “dynamic interface between the street and the classroom.” Although occasionally lectures become mired in theory, the general approach of the analyses is aimed at exposing the on going failure of the neoliberal projects of assimilation and nor malization as they operate in LGBT social action and thought. Summing up the worlds of queer theory and scholarship “then”

and “now,” the editors observe that: “Changes in the art world, in transnational political organizing and feminist critique, in practices of archiving and making history have made possible new queer and trans worlds. And yet, white supremacy, viru lent homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and racism as well as the rise of new authoritarian movements around the globe continue to threaten queer and trans communities.” Contributions in history, art, activism, and scholarship com mingle in these pages. Activist Gayle Rubin decries the wide spread assumption that LGBT studies only began in the 1990s; the late artist Douglas Crimp provides a cogent account of the birth of performance art in the fusion of the “gay scene” and the “art scene” in 1970s New York City; poet Cheryl Clark traces her early literary influence to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s before concluding with a powerful excerpt from a short story by contemporary writer Mecca Jamillah Sullivan. Some solutions are proposed. Scholar Cathy J. Cohen points up the distinction between performative and substantive soli darity at the outset of her trenchant assessment of the need for structural realignment so that “transformational work can begin.” Scholar Roderick A. Ferguson looks at Street Tranves tite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), a Stonewall-era organi zation founded by pioneers Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, as an example of “strange affinities and as the impe tus to recast intersectionality” in a way that links Marx, the Frankfurt School and the struggle for transgender liberation. These glimpses provide just a small hint of the provocations and inspiration that await the reader of this rich collection.

Lagos Lagoon Yes, we have to drown in this water, To be. I am no longer a slave To this fear. You, with the little scar On your face. Me, with the accent I have no memory of picking up. I inherited so much emptiness, and I blame myself for ushering it in With open arms. We talked about The most unusual of things: Rigor mortis. In a different way than she had expected. All of our longings share the same face And bear the same names. Out of the blue, You mentioned that lemons are a product Of a mistake. I knew you were talking about us. For the very thing we yearn for. I held your hands and laughed. I am sorry I am not good with words. I am sorry I am not good at all the things I am supposed to be good at. I dragged you to the shore where a canoe recently docked. I explained the beauty in being the outcasts; the subtle art of floating with no form of fear. You wanted to hear all these but also, Didn’t want to hear any of it. I collected water in my hands, washed your face The art of drowning. Your mother Abandoning you for coming out About the hunger in our pants— How we are not supposed to yearn You threw your legs in the water and slipped From my hands. Running is easy, and I’m sorry I do not have the heart for it. I am sorry I do not have the heart for it. I am sorry For being the coward stupid enough to live Inside his own truth. As if to cleanse you of your guilt. Open your ey es, I say, but you didn’t.

A MEEN A NIMASHAUN

May–June 2024

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