Masquerade : queer poetry in America to the end of World War II

"Masquerade" is the most comprehensive anthology of poetry by American gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons. It includes representative poems from over 100 writers from pre-colonial Native America and Hawaii to the end of the Second World War. The anthology begins with selections of anonymous texts from the oral traditions of Hawaii and Native America, followed by voodoo chants and cowboy songs (with a few limericks thrown in for good measure). The largest section of the book, however, begins with poems by Fitz-Greene Halleck (1803-1882) and end with work by Dunstan Thompson (1918-1975). The selections are arranged by the year of the poet's birth and include samplings of poetry by a racially and ethnically diverse group of men and women. Contemporary readers will know the work of some of the poets in this section, such as Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot and Walt Whitman. Other poets, such as George Santayana or Jessie Rittenhouse, Hasteen Klah and Adah Isaacs Menken, will be strangers to most. In all, these poets created a rich heritage of verse that has been for the most part invisible in the history of American literature.