JOHN WIENERS was born in 1934. He was raised in the Boston area and was graduated from Boston College in 1954. That year he had an epiphany. He was in the audience at the famous Charles Street Meeting House, listening to the poet Charles Olsen, while a great hurricane was sweeping through the area.

John then attended Black Mountain in its final years. After that experience, he moved to San Francisco and was part of the SF Renaissance. It was while he was in residence in SF that he wrote and published THE HOTEL WENTLEY POEMS, considered a significant text in post-war poetry. Then he was off to New York City, actively involved in the poetry scene there. There was a stint in Buffalo. There were also periods of hospitalizations, and the regimen of electroshocks--the one in 1968 gave us THE ASYLUM POEMS. By 1972, John was back in Boston. He became active in the Fag Rag Collective and was, I think, president of the corporation. The Good Gay Poets published his 1975 title, BEHIND THE STATE CAPITOL: OR CINCINNATI PIKE, which revealed a new, if, for some, difficult voice in his work. John seemed to have the good timing to be in the right place at the right time for his gifts. Even humble little Boston was in his pocket. I recall a conversation I had with my friend, the late Sal Farinella, also a FAG RAG and Good Gay Poets staffer. We were having dinner with James Purdy, prior to hosting an event for Mr. Purdy. Sal told us he was in touch, on a regular basis with over 50 poets in the USA, and all of his correspondents, in their letters, asked after John Wieners. In the poetry community, Wieners became the writer everyone wanted to look out for, or maybe even adopt. He had a lot of guardian angels.

John died in 2002. Bookstrap Press, an imprint from Lowell, Massachusetts, has just issued A BOOK OF PROPHECIES, by Wieners. The publication of this book has its own story. John wrote these poems between 1970 and 1972. As Jim Dunn explains in his introduction, these works were written in a notebook. Wieners gave this volume to Louisa Solano, owner of the Grolier Bookshop. Louisa passed the manuscript on to another bookseller. It wound up at auction at Christie's in May. 1991. The new owner sold it to the special archives at Kent State University in Ohio. The poet Michael Carr discovered a listing for this item on line and, working with the library staff, he obtained a copy, and it is the result of his dedication that this part of the Wieners' work is, thankfully, now in print. It is full of John's handwriting, some just scrawl, and some completely idiosyncratic jottings. But it's all John--that's how he wrote! Everyone involved in this publication should be congratulated. It's a gorgeous book, true to John's voice and spirit and a great result of literary sleuthing. Who knows how many more of John's journals, notebooks and daybooks are out there?

A BOOK OF PROPHECIES is a trade paperback, $15.00

From starting a gay-straight alliance in your high school to lobbying your state representative face-to-face, COME OUT AND WIN explains, clearly and simply, how to become politically active and organize. It will educate, engage and agitate LGBT people and allies of all ages to become involved in the political movement to win full equality. Hyde tells the history of gay liberation but also offers firsthand guidance and practical advice for building organizations and taking effective actions to expose and eliminate homophobia.

Hyde is a longtime activist and is director of the annual Creating Change Conference, sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

COME OUT AND WIN is a trade paperback from Beacon Press, $13.00

HOT COPS is a collection of GAY EROTIC STORIES, which was edited by SHANE ALLISON. These stories explore the sexier, sleazier side of cops, masculine icons, and working-class heroes, from park rangers and policemen to MPs, security guards and private dicks.

Contributors include: Jeff Mann, M. Christian, Neil Plakcy, T. Hitman, Dale Chase, Steve Berman and others.

HOT COPS is a trade paperback from Cleis Press, $14.95

DAVID KAPLAN, in his book TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IN PROVINCETOWN, has tracked down TW's traces in P-Town. Ten first stayed in a dune house. Next time he moved "up" to a rooming house. After his ship came in, he rented a nice bungalow.

One summer, Williams took his rented bike and rode 40 miles down to Dennis to see Tallulah Bankhead in Arthur Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Williams met La Bankhead after the performance and presented her with a copy of his play Battle of Angels. This must have been 1940--Kaplan is great on color, not as good on continuity. But I don't think it matters that much. He captures Williams when on the cusp of becoming a famous playwright. It was real work. He scraped by, had only basic creature comforts. He did find romance in Provincetown, and he wrote all the time.

Kaplan notes that in time Williams bought a place in Key West, another artistic extremity of the USA. I found it charming when he mentioned: "The distance from the Florida mainland to Key West is approximately the same as from Massachusetts to P-town..." Maybe some people think Provincetown, like Key West and Fire Island, really is an island. But an island of what?

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IN PROVINCETOWN is a trade paperback from Hansen Publishing Group, $14.95

Jennings writes: "In a world where sexual-minority youth face routine harassment and school staff do little to stop it, a guide such as this will prove invaluable to LGBT students, their parents, and their allies. It's natural to feel a little hopeless and a little helpless when you are subject to injustice and the authorities do nothing about it (and, as shown in this book, sometimes it's the authorities themselves who are the source of the injustice). But Lisa Keen helps LGBT students understand that they do not have to be victims but can use the law to fight back."

Keen notes in her preface: "Knowing how to defend your rights as a citizen is not just a matter of self-defense and self-interest. There's more at stake than whether we, as sexual minorities, are able to secure our rights as citizens. Below the surface of these skirmishes over 'gay rights' is a struggle to control the culture and direction of America. The outcome of that struggle will define the parameters of what it means to live in a democracy. And that has consequences for everybody."

OUT LAW is a trade paperback from Beacon Press, $13.00

SEX IN THE WEST VILLAGE NYC is a collection of black and white photographs by JACK SLOMOVITS. These are photos of young men in single nude photos and some of duos in intimate behavior.

SEX IN THE WEST VILLAGE NYC is a hardcover from Bruno Gmünder. $41.95

Ali Mirza is a young Brit, whose father is from Pakistan. He's told them he is gay. Nonetheless, his family arranges for him to get married to a woman of their selection. Comes the wedding and Ali has met his bride for only five minutes before the nuptials. His bride, Sajda, claims she is in love with him. Ali's boyfriend can't deal with it all and moves to France.

Ali is torn. Should he split and join the boyfriend in France? Or stay and due his duty in this arranged marriage? If he splits, his family members will find him and force him to straighten out. When it comes for him to decide, he does it in a matter of days.

STRAIGHTENING ALI is a trade paperback from StarBooks Press, $16.95

In the three stories, "Record Time," "Give It Up For Billy," and "A Good Sport," White explores different aspects of aging, romance and sex. Getting older in gay life has been an issue for some, but White goes at it with the iconoclasm for which he has been acclaimed. He writes about maturity with the same insight and precision he brought to adolescence in A BOY'S OWN STORY.

CHAOS is a hardcover from Carroll & Graf, $21.95

Since his death, some of the title have gone out of print, as some did before he died. Some of Patrick's most popular titles have been reprinted. Featured here is a new edition of two of his earlier titles: DANGEROUS BOYS/RENT BOYS. Patrick, of course, was a contributor to many of his volumes as well as editor. Other contributors are: Leo Cardini, Thom Nickels, Adam Starchild, Frank Brooks, Michael Botkin, Jesse Monteagudo and others.

DANGEROUS BOYS/RENT BOYS is a trade paperback from StarBooks, $19.95

Maupin took a break from his TALES series and did interesting work. In his latest, MICHAEL TOLLIVER LIVES, he returns to San Francisco, and the city has changed. Tolliver was probably the favorite male character in Maupin's series, affectionately known as Mouse. Now he is fifty-five years old, working as a gardener, and he gets to tell his own story.

He survived the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers. He likes the city, hasn't been pleased with all the changes he's seen, but takes pleasure in life and is eager to make new acquaintances. He finds love with a younger man, attends to his dying Mother in Florida, and reaffirms his devotion to the woman who was once his landlady years ago, who is now in her 80s.

Though this novel is not being advertised as part of the original series, any fan of the TALES novels will plug right in. Maupin makes it all bawdy as well as bittersweet, though the theme is about getting older joyfully and exploring everyday miracles.

MICHAEL TOLLIVER LIVES is a hardcover from HarperCollins, $25.95

A nice little surprise...

Into my hands came a batch of old GAY ENGAGEMENT CALENDARS. This was an item published annually in a spiral-bound desk calendar format. MARTIN GREIF did the work putting it together. GREIF was also the author of THE GAY BOOK OF DAYS, mostly likely drawn from the material he had gleaned for his calendar--or vice versa. Who knows?

Anyway, these calendars are lots of fun. They open flat on your desk. The double-spread will feature a picture or drawing, depicting a figure who will be mentioned amongst the calendar listings. The commentary accompanying the dates are fascinating--contemporary stuff and gossip from the ancient world. For the year 1978, we find that Friday April 7th notes: "Henry Hay, a pioneering leader of the American gay liberation movement and a founder of the Mattachine Society, born at Worthing, Sussex, England, 1912. Rose O'Neill, American poet and creator of the Kewpie doll, dies at seventy, 1944." The next day, April 8th: The [Roman] emperor Caracalla, whose exploits are recounted in C.J. Bulliet's bizarre book about female impersonators, Venus Castina (1933), murdered at twenty-nine in Mesopotamia, 217 A.D."

Anyway, I have the run of these calendars from 1977 through 1987--missing1985. $10.00 each or $75.00 for the lot.  If you are interested, call (617) 338-1931 for ordering information.