sometimes books confuse even me

[readingthedark]

I ID as queer even if I haven't put it into practice recently.

I love animals enough that I haven't eaten them in decades and I used to petsit a lot, like respected and trusted as a responsible petsitter.

And poetry means so much to me that it has ruined my life several times in ways that most people could never even imagine.

I'm a poster child for making the world safer for queer animal-loving poetry, I really am.

I'm even in favor of anthologies that only allow GLBT writers on themes that don't necessarily mandate only GLBT writers.  (Because I'm heterophobic or at least frustrated by how quietly the majority can think it's whispering while it's drowning out minority voices.)

But this is confusing:



It's an anthology of verse about dogs by such noted authors as Gertrude Stein and W. H. Auden!

I even saw it for sale on a British pet supply website!

And, yes, if I were teaching a course on gender identity and dog poetry, I would use this text, but...

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

...The sad part is, it's not the only book of verse about dogs I have seen. (It is the only gay book of verse about dogs I have seen.) I still have, somewhere around here, a poem called "The Love Song of Audrey," also known as Prufrock The Butt-Sniffing Labrador.

...I have no idea who the poet is! But I haven't forgotten his work.

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

As much as I love animals (for other people, the responsibility is beyond my ragtag scope), I've always disliked cutesy little books designed to tug at the heartstrings (and pursestrings) of pet lovers, mostly because people who are into those kind of books tend to have shelves worth.

When I started working in a bookstore, I wished everyone good luck when they bought a diet book. A year later, when I realized that they bought one or two diet books a month and never lost any weight, I just pretended that I was happy to see them. And cutesy fluffy kitty books with badly drawn kitties strike me as an equally silly category to collect. Then again, to prove my own hypocrisy, I can be impressed by a collection of first editions in one of those eternal fantasy bazillogies even though epic fantasy rarely works for me.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I bet it was this! http://www.poetryevolution.com/2006/06/06/poems-puppies/

(ph33r my google-fu!)