Poet Jeffery Beam
The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems 1969-2007
The author regrets that The Beautiful Tendons is temporarily out of print, and is in search of a new publisher. Copies can be obtained from the Bull's Head Bookshop, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems 1969-2007 brings together more than three decades of lyrical, metaphysical Gay poetry from native North Carolinian Jeffery Beam. The vast majority of these poems are unpublished in any of his previously published books, but were originally published in many of the most important gay magazines & anthologies of the latter half of the 20th century. Demonstrating Beam's under-acknowledged poetic contribution to late 20th century & early 21st century Gay literature, the collection gathers an introductory essay (The Visionary Company of Love), 72 poems, & three longer poem sequences on Gay love, friendship & spirituality. It includes six line drawings & two pastel portraits (1980) by North Carolina artist Sue Anderson, & nineteen photographs by Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856-1931). James Broughton called Beam's poetry "sensual epiphanies, lightning flashes of the dramatic heart of event, memories from the crux of dream."
These juicy poems, at the intersection of spirituality & sexuality, leave me breathless with their erotic
thrust.
—Edward Field
Beam's insistence on being his own man in his own setting is notable because many writers of his era have sought
the
support of the large gay communities in urban centers. Just as his writing reflects the courage to avoid the
current fashion & seek something more lasting, so his living in a small southern community is based on the
conviction that he belongs there by right & is needed there for his ability to contribute to the richer life of the
place.
—Critic Cy Dillon
Jeffery Beam's The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems 1969-2007 proves what many of us have known for
some
time: he is one of our most important & valuable poets. This is clearly evident in this batch of uncollected works.
No matter what he touches on, it is always observed with Beam's precise & careful eye in spare, direct language
that's as fresh as a sunrise & the sweet air of morning. Read these poems & brighten your day. I guarantee it.
—Novelist & memoirist Michael Rumaker
Though the work here was chosen for its subject-male love
and
friendship-it offers an excellent sampling of all that that's
valuable in this poet, whose work ought to be more familiar to
readers of poetry than it is. An unrelenting intelligence
drives Beam's poems toward an agenda that's mystical, sexual,
pantheist. He is one of Whitman's wild children… Passionate
and wistful, these are poems about the spirit of love, and the
mysteries of affection, not the sexual result thereof. The
skill displayed in these 75 or so poems is often
extraordinary. "A Man Mutilated by Desire," written in the
manner of Cesar Vallejo, just about outdoes the master, and
demonstrates Beam's ability to replicate poems of any type or
in any style....Meanwhile in poems such as the one that lends
the book
its title, Beam's own style-precise, pared down-moves images
and ideas along in ways that consistently surprise and
delight. The 7 terse lines of "I Fell in Love With" rise to
the level of Chinese masters such as Confucius as they
skillfully build around his tree metaphor to capture the one
thing about love there is to regret: its brevity. The success
of these poems, and the poet's work generally, owes to Beam's
consistent focus on developing a thought and allowing us to
watch it move, grow, die without embellishment or gimmicks. He
is the rare thing, a poet of depth and complexity who takes
evident satisfaction in making himself understood.
—
Poet and critic, Jim Cory, from the unedited version of the
review which appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide
The gift to the reader is this: an accomplished, graceful writer sharing work from over thirty years, poems that
sing from the heart of desire. Poetry of contemplation, lived experience & Passion; Beam's voice is joyful, carnal,
& worshipful.
—Poet, writer, & activist Andy Quan
The lyrics of Beautiful Tendons do what poems ought to do. They brim with melancholy & love, a poignant
tenderness
& a delicious eroticism, the beauties of humanity & the natural world. They combine thoughtful & evocative depths
with a pellucid simplicity of phrasing. Like Whitman's work, they celebrate both the body & the soul. What a
luxury & a delight to have so many of Jeffery Beam's poems in one handsome volume.
—Poet, fiction writer, memoirist, & activist, Jeff Mann
Beam's imagery draws from outside the American landscape. There is only the field made elven-strange. It's the
curious union of American objectivist aesthetics, whose democratic intent seeks to free the poem's subject from the
weight of the author's hand, with a more distant landscape still populated by God & light & spirit. It's not so
remarkable that such an instinct should be found in America, but that, bent to these interests, Beam should be as
publicly successful as he is. After all, this is nowhere near American Idol. It's also far from the Southern
confessional, & the academic, postmodern difficulty—those twin mainstreams of American poetry. Wisely, Beam never
attempted to make himself sellable. He chose instead a smaller scale, working with regional, small presses, building
connections with regional artists to produce an array of projects. Beam's position on the margins is doubled. As
a queer poet, he has a desire that the mainstream world is discomforted by & he lives in a world where his value is
openly contested. He has mastered the difficult work of stopping at the awkward or seemingly naïve celebration &
leaving it bare, without another layer of words, so that no other surfaces lie between reader & poem.
—Poet & Critic David Need
Email: jeffbeam@email.unc.edu
URL: http://www.unc.edu/~jeffbeam/links.html
Last updated: September 24, 2008