Margins
Ocho #22 book cover
Ocho #22
Dear America, Don't Be My Valentine
2009
First Published
4.67
Average Rating
104
Number of Pages

Part of Series

The call for this edition of OCHO went out as a response to several political events in the Fall-Winter season of 2008-2009. The first, a moment in the Vice Presidential debates early November between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden, in which both candidates seemed to befriend the gay community while denouncing our right to marry. What an awful laughter relieved both the candidates and the audience, as if everyone were too embarrassed to discuss the validity of a gay relationship in the national discussion. Then, the passing of propositions 8 in California, 102 in Arizona, and Amendment 2 in Florida changing state constitutions and making it illegal for gays to marry. This historic election brought with it the disappointment and dissolution of 18,000 marriages and families directly affected by the Prop. 8 vote in California and, in Arkansas, an amendment making it illegal for gay couples to adopt.....
Avg Rating
4.67
Number of Ratings
12
5 STARS
83%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
17%
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Authors

Jee Leong Koh
Jee Leong Koh
Author · 1 books

Jee Leong Koh is the author of Steep Tea (Carcanet), named a Best Book of the Year by UK's Financial Times and a Finalist by Lambda Literary in the USA. His hybrid work of fiction, Snow at 5 PM: Translations of an insignificant Japanese poet, won the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize in English fiction. He was also shortlisted for the prize for The Pillow Book (Math Paper Press/Awai Books) and Connor and Seal (Sibling Rivalry). His second Carcanet book, Inspector Inspector, was published in late 2022. Koh's work has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Vietnamese, Russian, and Latvian. Originally from Singapore, Koh lives in New York City, where he heads the literary non-profit Singapore Unbound, the indie press Gaudy Boy, and the journal of Asian writing and art SUSPECT.

Charles Jensen
Charles Jensen
Author · 7 books
Charles Jensen is the author of six chapbooks of poems, including the recent Story Problems and Breakup/Breakdown, and The First Risk, which was a finalist for the 2010 Lambda Literary Award. A second collection, Nanopedia, was published in 2018 by Tinderbox Editions. His previous chapbooks include Living Things, which won the 2006 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award, and The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon (New Michigan Press, 2007). His poem “Tucson” received the 2018 Zócalo Poetry Prize. A past recipient of an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, his poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Bloom, Columbia Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Field, The Journal, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner. He is the founding editor of the online poetry magazine LOCUSPOINT, which explores creative work on a city-by-city basis. He lives in Los Angeles.
Christian Gullette
Christian Gullette
Author · 1 books
Christian Gullette’s forthcoming debut poetry collection Coachella Elegy won the Trio House Press Trio Award and was mentioned in LitHub’s "Poetry Books to Read in 2024." His poems have appeared or will soon appear in The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series (selected by Diane Seuss). He is the recipient of a 2022 Bread Loaf scholarship. Christian received his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley, and he works as a professional Swedish-to-English translator. Christian also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of The Cortland Review. He lives in San Francisco.
Eduardo C. Corral
Eduardo C. Corral
Author · 3 books
Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo fellow. He holds degrees from Arizona State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, Beloit Poetry Journal, Huizache, Jubilat, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, and Quarterly West. His work has been honored with a "Discovery"/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from Poetry, and writing residencies to the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has served as the Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. Slow Lightning, his first book of poems, was selected by Carl Phillips as the 2011 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he currently lives in New York City, teaching at Columbia University in the spring 2013.
Steve Fellner
Author · 4 books
Steve Fellner's first book of poems Blind Date with Cavafy won the Thom Gunn Gay Male Poetry Award. His memoir, All Screwed Up, focuses on his relationship with his ex-trampoline champion mother. He teaches at SUNY-Brockport. Read his blog at http://pansypoetics.blogspot.com/ "
Brent Goodman
Brent Goodman
Author · 5 books
Brent Goodman is the author of Far From Sudden (2012 Black Lawrence Press), The Brother Swimming Beneath Me (2009 Black Lawrence Press) and two chapbooks, Trees Are the Slowest Rivers (1998 Sarasota Poetry Theatre) and Wrong Horoscope (1999 Thorngate Road) which won the Frank O'Hara Award. His work has appeared in Poetry, Green Mountains Review, Poetry East, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Diode, No Tell Motel, Gulf Coast, Barn Owl Review, and elsewhere. A twice recipient of Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Artist Fellowship Awards and a former Lecturer of English at Purdue University (MFA '96), Brent is currently a member of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.
Francisco Aragon
Francisco Aragon
Author · 4 books
Francisco Aragón (1968) is a Latino poet, editor and writer.
Julie R. Enszer
Julie R. Enszer
Author · 5 books

Julie R Enszer is a scholar and poet. Her scholarship is at the intersection of U.S. history and literature with particular attention to twentieth century U.S. feminist and lesbian histories, literatures, and cultures. By examining lesbian print culture with the tools of history and literary studies, she reconsider histories of the Women’s Liberation Movement and gay liberation. Her book manuscript, A Fine Bind: Lesbian-Feminist Publishing from 1969 through 2009, tells stories a dozen lesbian-feminist publishers to consider the meaning of the theoretical and political formations of lesbian-feminism, separatism, and cultural feminism. Enszer is the author of two collections of poetry, Sisterhood (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and Handmade Love (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2010). She is editor of Milk & Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2011). Milk & Honey was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. She is the editor of Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, and a regular book reviewer for the Lambda Book Report and Calyx.

Blas Falconer
Author · 5 books

Blas Falconer teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Murray State University. Falconer’s awards include a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, a Tennessee Individual Artist Grant, the New Delta Review Eyster Prize for Poetry, and the Barthelme Fellowship. Born and raised in Virginia, Falconer earned an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland (1997) and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston (2002). He currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his family.

Tamiko Beyer
Tamiko Beyer
Author · 4 books

TAMIKO BEYER IS THE AUTHOR OF THE AWARD-WINNING POETRY COLLECTION WE COME ELEMENTAL (ALICE JAMES BOOKS), AND CHAPBOOK BOUGH BREAKS (MERITAGE PRESS). Her poetry has appeared in journals including The Volta, Tupelo Quarterly, and The Progressive and several anthologies. She is a founding member of Agent 409: a queer, multi-racial writing collective in New York City that performed across the east coast and led workshops at conferences such as the U.S. Social Forum and Split this Rock Poetry Festival. She has received several fellowships and grants, including a Kundiman fellowship, a grant from the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, and an Olin and Chancellor’s Fellowships from Washington University in St. Louis. She was a longtime workshop leader for the New York Writers Coalition. With a background in communications writing and grassroots organizing, Tamiko has worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the news program Democracy Now!, feminist film distributor Women Make Movies, and San Francisco Women Against Rape. Today, she is the Deputy Communications Director at Corporate Accountability International. Raised in Tokyo, Japan, Tamiko has lived on both the East and West coasts. She received her B.A. from Fairhaven College at Western Washington University and her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. She lives in Boston in a former chocolate factory next to the Neponset River.

C. Dale Young
C. Dale Young
Author · 7 books
C. Dale Young is the author of five collections of poetry, including Prometeo (Four Way Books 2021), and a novel-in-stories, The Affliction, published by Four Way Books in 2018. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, Young practices medicine full-time and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
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