HIV Here & Now

After a long hiatus, the HIV Here & Now Project is back.

The original online poem-a-day project started on June 5, 2015, as a poem-a-day countdown to 35 years of AIDS. The project began life as an idea for a print anthology about longterm survival with HIV. That idea was born at AWP in Minneapolis in April 2015 when I read in an offsite reading at the Minneapolis Central Library. It was an LGBTQ reading, and a number of the poets, including me, were older gay men who read poems about being longterm survivors living with HIV. Some of the poets were older lesbian women reading poems about caring for men who had AIDS in the 1980s and 90s, either as medical professional, mental health professionals, or friends (often in combinations of those).

As I sat in the audience, I thought, Hmm…this is a trend. There ought to be an anthology. I ought to edit it! And so it began. Walking through the bookfair at AWP, I hit on the title Live to Tell (borrowed from the iconic Madonna song—which made perfect sense in 2015 because of the role Madonna had played throughout the 1980s and beyond in supporting the queer community and advocating for AIDS-related causes). I had just founded Indolent Books, a boutique indie press, which at that point had published exactly NOTHING! I decided I would publish Live to Tell on Indolent Books.

As I walked the corridors of the Minneapolis Convention Center, it occurred to me that it should not be an anthology of poems by only by longterm survivors and those who loved them or cared for them; it should include work by everyone who had anything to contribute to the discourse on HIV and AIDS, especially as we were entering the era of PrEP (preexposure prophylaxis) and U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable). In particular, I wanted to include the voices of younger poets, poets of color, and trans poets.

Back home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, I was soliciting my ass off, but it wasn’t doing the trick (so to speak). I needed to build awareness about the project, enthusiasm, momentum. Online poem-a-day projects were proliferating in those days—for example, around issues like fatal officer-involved shootings of young Black men around the country—so I decided to start a poem-a-day project focused on what was going on around HIV and AIDS infection, treatment, and prevention in 2015. As I sat in a local cafe mulling this idea over, I searched my mind for a hook. Why this? Why now?

Well…we were headed towards the 35th anniversary of AIDS. On June 5, 1981, the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report ran a story about five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young gay men in Los Angeles. This was the first media report of any kind on the disease that would come to be known as AIDS. Yes! That’s it!! I could do a one-year poem-a-day countdown to 35 years of AIDS—from June 5, 2015 to June 5, 2016. That would generate awareness and get me plenty of poems from which to develop a manuscript for the print anthology.

HOWEVER—As I landed on that brilliant idea, it was, in fact, June 5, 2015. I had to start it THAT DAY. Within a couple of hours, I had purchased the domain name, installed WordPress on my hosting account, and put together a rudimentary website. With my zero knowledge of Photoshop or any other graphics program, I used Word to put together the logo with the red ± sign on a black background. And I posted a poem of my own as “Poem 1 ± June 5, 2015.” Then I started scrambling to get some poems to post on the following days. I snagged poem #2 from Julene T. Weaver. Poem #3 from Merrill Cole. And then we were off to the races.

The HIV Here & Now Project became very successful. The project and I were featured in some pretty cool media venues that year. And as for the print anthology? IT NEVER HAPPENED. To be clear, I had plenty of poems to choose from. But I pulled the plug. As I noted above, while I originally thought of HIV Here & Now as a “live to tell” poetic journey of primarily older gay men who had survived the ravishes of the epidemic in the 1980s, 90s, and into the 2000s, I quickly pivoted to a much more inclusive concept. And indeed, young poets, poets of color, and trans poets were represented in the poem-a-day project that became the source of poems for the proposed print anthology. But not enough. Not enough for me, at least. To me—and I was both editor and publisher—the poems by younger, nonwhite, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming poets were too far outnumbered by primarily gay white male poets over 50.

Now, of course, I am a gay white male poet over 50. Over 60, at this point, ten years after conceiving of that anthology. And in fact, lots of people in 2016 would have eaten up an anthology of poems by predominantly gay white male poets. Indeed, that was the problem. Maybe some 75 to 100 poets and their poems who have gotten lots of attention, and I would have gotten kudos for published some kind of “brave” and “necessary” anthology. But to me, it would have been bullshit. Because the real issue was black and brown queer and trans kids and young adults still getting HIV and AIDS at gut-wrenchingly and disgustingly disproportion rates.

In 2016, we did not need any Live to Tell-type anthology about how gay white men had suffered. And they had, indeed, suffered. But as a multiracial, multicultural, multigender, multisexuality, queer, trans, and nonbinary population—We could do better. I could do better.

So here I am. Starting again. Not starting over. The work I have done on this project to date has meant an awful lot to an awful lot of people. It is work I am proud of. But it is time for a gut renovation. Before moving on, I do want to express my profound thanks to my friend and Indolent Books inaugural list author Robert Carr, who took a shot at editing Live to Tell back in 2016. He did a great job. I would have been proud to share editing credits with him. But I was the publisher as well as the co-editor, and that—through no fault of Bob’s—that was not the book I wanted to publish.

So stay tuned over the coming days for calls for submissions to the revitalized HIV Here & Now Project. It’s been quiet for too long. Let’s make a little noise. Because poetry is the best kind of infection.

THIS SITE HOSTS A POEM-A-DAY COUNTDOWN TO 35 YEARS OF AIDS ON JUNE 5, 2016.

Why June 5?

On June 5, 1981, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report ran a story about five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young gay men in Los Angeles. This was the first media report of any kind on what would come to be known as AIDS.

A month later, on July 3, 1981, The New York Times published an article by Lawrence K. Altman entitled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” Doctors in New York and California had diagnosed Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), a rare and fatal form of cancer.

This mysterious condition was soon given the name GRID, for Gay Related Immune Disorder. Once the condition was observed in other groups besides gay men, the name was changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.

On June 5, 2015, The HIV Here & Now Project began an online poem-a-day countdown leading up to 35 years of AIDS (inspired by Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker’s poetry project during the first 100 days of the Obama administration in 2009). The poems in the countdown address 35 years of AIDS directly or indirectly, literally or metaphorically. Poems deal with long-term survival, recent infection, racialization of HIV, criminalization of HIV, globalization of HIV, and living with HIV risk, among other topics. Many of the poems are not apparently related to HIV or AIDS at all, but are simply beautiful poems honoring a day in the countdown.

The Poems

Poems for NaPoWriMo 2019 : A poem a day by a different poet for National Poetry Writing Month

POEMS FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2018 : A monthlong poem-a-day lead-up to World AIDS Day on December 1, 2018

POEMS FOR NAPOWRIMO 2018 : A poem a day by a different poet for National Poetry Writing Month (See all the prompts for NaPoWriMo 2018)

POEMS FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2017 : A monthlong poem-a-day lead-up to World AIDS Day on December 1, 2017

POEMS FOR NAPOWRIMO 2017 : A poem a day by a different poet for National Poetry Writing Month

POEMS FOR WORLD AIDS DAY 2016 : A monthlong poem-a-day lead-up to World AIDS Day on December 1, 2016

POEMS FOR 35 YEARS OF AIDS: A yearlong poem-a-day countdown to 35 years of AIDS on June 5, 2016

The Print Anthology…DID NOT HAPPEN

With the online countdown behind us, we are editing the print anthology and keeping the site lively with blog posts by contributing editors and guest bloggers (many of whom contributed poets to the online countdown and will be represented in the print anthology). Blog posts address long-term survival, recent infection, racialization of HIV, criminalization of HIV, globalization of HIV, and living with HIV risk, among other topics.

The HIV Here & Now Print Poetry Anthology is a place for poems about HIV and the experience of HIV in this world right here and right now. 

The poet does not have to be HIV-positive or have AIDS. The poems, however, must have a connection to HIV or AIDS on some level, be it direct or indirect, literal or metaphorical.

The HIV Here & Now Print Poetry Anthology will draw poems from the online poem-a-day countdown to 35 years of AIDS that ended on June 5, 2016. Any poems that were posted as part of that project or submitted to that project are already under consideration for the The HIV Here & Now Print Poetry Anthology.

Our mission is always expanding—to new media, new audiences, new goals and objectives. Follow us, join us, live, learn, struggle, and love with us.

#hivtest #hivtreat #hivprevent #nohivshame #nohivstigma