Author: november

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is a story which manages to weave two opposites together in a number of ways. For one, the combination of humor, something so light, against the tragic reality of the AIDS crisis and the suffering in the character’s lives. Combining the two makes a much more enjoyable experience, even if it does occasionally tear your heart out, as all good things eventually do.

In particular, the first scene between Harper and Prior is where this begins in ernest. With one dreaming and one on a drug trip, both trying to cope with their lives. Their circumstances in life are anything but comedic. However, the way they speak to each other, for a moment, leaves behind their misery.

They aren’t anything alike from what they know in the instance when they first meet, but it becomes clearer that they aren’t as different as they could be, even turning to joke about it; Harper: It’s terrible. Mormons aren’t supposed to be addicted to anything. I’m a Mormon. / Prior: I’m a homosexual. / Harper: Oh! In my church, we don’t believe in homosexuals. / Prior: In my church, we don’t believe in mormons.” (Kushner, 32) Their way of handling each other is met with something much lighter than what might be expected from two people in seemingly opposing paths of life, but they don’t seem to have any issue at this moment.

They exist as two separate things, yet when looked at together, their struggles and joys merge into something that is easier to understand and see; a combination of their tragedy and comedy.

Eli Clare writes about many things, from gender to the environment. But for now, let’s focus on the gender part, or more specifically, the queer part. A lot of Clare’s writing thus far focuses on the idea of gender and how that influences the world. Something in particular that stood out to me was a single sentence on page 19, which can be read very differently than it seems. There are a few parts of this statement to examine.

The idea that I wish to focus on is simple; no one can fully understand someone else’s experience with the world. It’s hard for two people to experience the same things. As Clare says in this sentence, “he has never walked a logging road, listened to the idle roar of a chainsaw, or counted growth rings on an old growth stump…” (Clare, 19), not everyone understands the same parts of the world. This is the primary focus of my reading.

While this is about Clare’s past and how his friend can’t understand the exact experiences that he’s had in life, but that there is something shared regardless. I am taking this to be interpreted as this; while another person can’t always fully understand how a person identifies, they can still hold that human empathy and understand that there is a complex backing to an identity. In this particular example, Clare ends the statement saying “…but we share sensibility about environmental destruction.” While this is about the world around them, it could still be about their personal experiences and identities.

In the fourth poem of the La Dazante section of Cheri Moraga’s works, the poem touches on the idea of concealing an identity and relationship, but I would like to focus on the second half of it. It’s in some ways rather blatant, at least in the world of poems. There is something intimate in all of this, the idea of being held in one’s arms, of being so close, yet still feel like dying; which highlights the personal intimacy and secrecy, followed later by ”and I enter you as deep and as hard as we want / because you were there too dying” (Moraga, 21, lines 7-8). It’s gentle, loving, without any regard for the society, or nation, around them, while acknowledging the pain of their reality. When they are not in a safe place, hidden away in a motel far from anyone they know, there is no room or possibility for their love due to its queerness.

In terms of the actual structure itself, the end of the poem notably runs counter to what comes before it. “We want to gather all the touch we can // before we go // back. (Moraga, lines 13-15)” The isolation of this poem is specific. When the speaker is with their lover, the poem is spaced differently, closer together and interwoven. Upon the mention of leaving, returning to a world that is not warm and welcoming to their love and relationship, even the words themselves begin to isolate.

The poem itself is about the inability to be queer in public, but embrace it in private. The idea that they must hide themselves before returning to their normal life, despite the clear tenderness and love that they hold for their lover. In a moment where it is just them, they are free to love and lust for each other, however, the moment they return to their nation, they must once again return to hiding.