Back in the '70s there was a gay men's poetry journal called Mouth Of The Dragon. It published young unknowns and Frank O'Hara. It introduced me to incantatory ruminations of Joe Brainard and to the quietly sexy poetry of Ian Young. Among the writers I discovered in those pages was Perry Brass. It was odd I hadn't actually met him since I'd been at GLF meetings at Alternate U., but then those meetings were often so chaotic (and at 18 years of age, I wasn't interested in speaking to anyone over the age
of 21) that the memory is still a blur of arguments about consciousness-raising groups and whether the men should all shave their beards in solidarity with the women (who obviously didn't have beards). All this is a roundabout way of saying that I finally met Perry at a party at the LGBT Center a few weeks back to honor Mark Thompson for his photo exhibit on Queer Spiritual Leaders (Men's division). I was happy to meet two men whose work has guided me in my spiritual growth as a gay man (Perry and Mark together on the right).
And then, a week later, Perry was back at the Center, along with a group of other writers, all there to
read their contributions to an anthology called Identity Envy. It was an intense evening, with a most affecting reading by Rosebud Ben-Ami, a story called Mishmumken: For Those Who Cannot Choose. This was the story of a lesbian relationship between an Israeli-American Jew and a Palestinian-Israeli Christian. There was a wild story by an 
exciting young writer named JDGuilford about the meaning of dreadlocks to black men, and what happens when a gay black man takes on this style so filled with sexual-political meaning. And then there was Perry, reading his memories of growing up Jewish in the South with the fantasy of being a blond Christian girl (this reminded me of Katherine Kurs' memoir in Searching for Your Soul: Writers of Many Faiths Share Their Personal Stories of Spiritual Discovery, in which she recounts growing up a Jewish girl who wants to become a nun and dressed her dolls as nuns).
Yes, Identity Envy is about how we all harbor the desire not only for the Other, but often the desire to be the Other. It's a rich collection well worth reading. As is Searching For Your Soul, which I will have to write about at length another time.
One reason I was particularly happy to meet Perry and Mark at the party those weeks back is that the three of us can now be found under one cover. We three all have work published in another anthology, Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit In Storytelling, which has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award (ceremony is next Thursday and the burning question of the moment is, should I go to the awards or go to the opening night film at the NewFestival? I have tickets to both! WIll words seduce me,or will it be the image on the screen?) I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be in print besides these men I so admire — and in fact, you'll also find in Charmed Lives stories by Jay Michaelson and Andrew Ramer, two queer jubu heroes of mine.
But back to Perry, who has been quite busy since his poems appeared in that little zine 30 plus years ago. He has quite a literary oeuvre, and I urge you to check it out. Not to mention his seduction advice.
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