(POETRY). (LGBTQ+). WIENERS, John. We Were There! A Gay Presence at the Democratic Convention. [Playboy].

The Second Publication of the "Good Gay Poets"

(POETRY). (LGBTQ+). WIENERS, John. We Were There! A Gay Presence at the Democratic Convention. [Playboy]. (Boston: The Good Gay Poets, 1972) [13] leaves, printed on rectos only. (305 x 230 mm.) First Edition. Original brown printed wrappers with yapp edges, stapled as issued. Wrappers a little sunned and with several small tears around the edges; contents with one or two trivial marks, first and last pages toned, otherwise excellent.

The longest poem of Wiener's career, journaling a road trip from New York to Miami for the Democratic Convention--which, for the first time, included openly gay speakers.

Formed in 1972, the Good Gay Poets (a play on Walt Whitman's moniker, the "Good Gray Poet") was a publishing collective that grew out of the first gay male national newspaper, "Fag Rag." Both entities were known for their groundbreaking work publishing queer media in the post-Stonewall era.

Beat poet John Wieners (1934-2002) was a member of the San Francisco Renaissance and an activist for causes such as the gay liberation movement. According to the Poetry Foundation, "His poetry combines candid accounts of sexual and drug-related experimentation with jazz-influenced improvisation, placing both in a lyrical structure." Alan Ginsberg considered him an unsung genius, writing in the Foreword to Wieners' "Selected Poems" that "[his] glory is solitary, as pure poet--a man reduced to loneliness in poetry, without worldly distractions--and a man become one with his poetry."