by Odelle Duffy, Poetry Editor
October is officially LGBTQ+ History Month. At DiN, we are dedicated to publishing and representing the LGBTQ+ community.
"A Poem for Pulse" by Jameson Fitzpatrick, is a tribute to the Orlando Nightclub Shooting and the entire LGBTQ+ community featured in the Poetry Foundations LGBTQ Pride Poems Collection. This poem is also one of many in the book Bullets into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. It is "a powerful call to end American gun violence from celebrated poets and those most impacted". It was published in 2017, a year after the Orlando Nightclub Shooting at Pulse. The author, Jameson Fitzpatrick, is a poet, critic, and author of two chapbooks (a collection of poetry). Fitzpatrick currently lives in New York City and teaches at New York University.
Pulse nightclub was a gay bar and dance club in Orlando, Florida. On June 12, 2016, around 2 AM, a man walked into Pulse nightclub and opened fired on the crowd. 49 people were killed and 53 were injured. On the night of the shooting, Pulse nightclub was hosting a Latin Night event and most victims were Latinx. At the time it was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. To this day it is the deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11 and the deadliest attack against the LGBTQ community in the United States. In his poem, Fitzpatrick writes about a gay man going on a date with another man the night before the shooting. They leave a gay bar they were at and walk to the speaker of the poem's home. There, they share a kiss on his stoop. There is "a bar that's not a gay bar" next door and the patrons of the bar rudely stare at them kissing. The next morning the speaker of the poem learns of what happened the night before. Later it is mentioned that the father of the gunman said he believed his son committed these heinous acts of violence after he had witnessed two gay people kissing in Miami. The speaker of the poem grapples with the idea that the shooter ended so many lives that night because he saw two gay people kissing, which he had done the night before.
"What's a single kiss? I've had kisses no one has ever known about, so many kisses without consequence—" Fitzpatrick also brings up the fact that most of the victims were Latinx. "Brown people, which cannot be a coincidence in this country which is a racist country, which is gun country"
This piece acts as not only a tribute but as an encouragement and hope for the LGBTQ community, the Latinx community, and those suffering from the Pulse attack and similar violent attacks. He says "We must love one another whether or not we die".
Here at DiN, we want to pay tribute to the countless lives lost on that night. DiN as a collective is dedicated to publishing, honoring, and standing with historically marginalized voices in America, like the LGBTQ community and Latinx community. We also want to continuously bring recognition, discourse, and awareness to social and political issues in America right now, like hate crimes and gun violence.
"A Poem for Pulse"
by Jameson Fitzpatrick
Last night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What will we do when this place closes?
I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon, I said,
though the crowd was slow for a Saturday,
and he said—Yes, but one day. Where will we go?
He walked me the half-block home
and kissed me goodnight on my stoop—
properly: not too quick, close enough
our stomachs pressed together
in a second sort of kiss.
I live next to a bar that's not a gay bar
—we just call those bars, I guess—
and because it is popular
and because I live on a busy street,
there are always people who aren't queer people
on the sidewalk on weekend nights.
Just people, I guess.
They were there last night.
As I kissed this man I was aware of them watching
and of myself wondering whether or not they were just.
But I didn't let myself feel scared, I kissed him
exactly as I wanted to, as I would have without an audience,
because I decided many years ago to refuse this fear—
an act of resistance. I left
the idea of hate out on the stoop and went inside,
to sleep, early and drunk and happy.
While I slept, a man went to a gay club
with two guns and killed forty-nine people.
Today in an interview, his father said he had been disturbed
recently by the sight of two men kissing.
What a strange power to be cursed with:
for the proof of men's desire to move men to violence.
What's a single kiss? I've had kisses
no one has ever known about, so many
kisses without consequence—
but there is a place you can't outrun,
whoever you are.
There will be a time when.
It might be a bullet, suddenly.
The sound of it. Many.
One man, two guns, fifty dead—
Two men kissing. Last night
I can't get away from, imagining it, them,
the people there to dance and laugh and drink,
who didn't believe they'd die, who couldn't have.
How else can you have a good time?
How else can you live?
There must have been two men kissing
for the first time last night, and for the last,
and two women, too, and two people who were neither.
Brown people, which cannot be a coincidence in this country
which is a racist country, which is gun country.
Today I'm thinking of the Bernie Boston photograph
Flower Power, of the Vietnam protestor placing carnations
in the rifles of the National Guard,
and wishing for a gesture as queer and simple.
The protester in the photo was gay, you know,
he went by Hibiscus and died of AIDS,
which I am also thinking about today because
(the government's response to) AIDS was a hate crime.
Now we have a president who names us,
the big and imperfectly lettered us, and here we are
getting kissed on stoops, getting married some of us,
some of us getting killed.
We must love one another whether or not we die.
Love can't block a bullet
but neither can it be shot down,
and love is, for the most part, what makes us—
in Orlando and in Brooklyn and in Kabul.
We will be everywhere, always;
there's nowhere else for us, or you, to go.
Anywhere you run in this world, love will be there to greet you.
Around any corner, there might be two men. Kissing.
For more pieces from the LGBTQ Pride Poems collection, visit the Poetry Foundation
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Odelle Duffy is one of DiN's poetry editors. She is from a small town in Southern New Mexico and is currently a Senior studying Criminal Justice with minors in English, Psychology, and Forensic Science at New Mexico State University.
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