Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights : An A-To-Z Guide

E. Nelson

A guide to 62 gay male U.S. poets and playwrights. The poets and playwrights include well-known writers, such as Edward Albee, Allen Ginsberg, and James Merrill, but most are lesser known, especially in the broader world of literary studies. Some are no longer living (e.g., James Broughton, 1913-1999), but all are twentieth-century figures, many continuing into the twenty-first century. The contributors are mostly academics, but several are literary writers in their own right. The articles, arranged in alphabetical order, vary in length from 4 to 16 pages. They have a uniform format: biography, major works and themes, critical reception, and bibliography (first works of the poet or playwright by genre, followed by works about him). Citations are standard, except that monograph citations don't include pagination. The volume concludes with a general bibliography, an index, and a list of contributors with brief biographical information. The index is limited almost entirely to names of persons and titles of works, with very few subject entries (among them, AIDS, HIV, and Sadomasochism).