What are you feeling? Tell us!
Poetry selections from some of our queer writer friends.
During the production of our conversations on masculinity documentary film we interviewed over forty subjects. Through these conversations regarding intersectional masculinity—those who identify as male within non-dominant culture identities of ethnicity, race, nationality, ability and gender—we often stumbled upon individuals whose experiences are emblazoned in different art forms, where they dissect and reflect about their lives and how they wish to live in the world. Regardless of the medium of these individuals’ art, writing often finds a part in the planning, brainstorming or drafting of music, drawings, paintings, sculptures, etcetera.
Part of these discussions are in consequence of how we as men, who love and desire deep relating with other men, explore themes of isolation, indoctrination and expectation surrounding interpersonal relationship-building. These words and pieces of art embody and take shape with our identifiers—the language behind how we organize ideals of who we are to ourselves—and thus to each other. As interviewers, we inquire about everyone’s origin stories, and how the child part of them built systems of survival. Of course, these patterns follow us through the development of social circles and support, which can often find us struggling with the experience of dating, traversing dating applications and websites, trusting new people, and developing long-term amorous relationships.
In the case of the readings below, these men share with us about blackness in interracial relationships, feeling the power of blackness, the discomfort of emotional ineptness and unrequited interest in romance amongst men, how brownness and indigenousness look and feels in academia, social organizing and the fetishizing of brown and black bodies.