a&e features
Gay writer John Ashbery remembered from emotional, groundbreaking poetry
New biography from Karin Roffman explores early years of iconic author
Poet John Ashbery in the 1950s. His closeted youth provided inspiration for the longing represented in some of his early poems. (Photo courtesy Ashbery’s private collection; used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc.)
In June 1954, a gay poet in his late 20s sat desolately in the apartment he was subletting on West 14th Street in Manhattan. He’d been fired from his job and his lover had moved out. His misery increased as he watched the Army-McCarthy hearings on TV. McCarthy linked “homosexuals” with “subversives.”
The young poet was John Ashbery who would become one of the most renowned of 20th and 21st century poets. Ashbery’s work, like that of Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman, is, as Duke Ellington used to say, “beyond category,” died on Sept. 3 at age 90 at his home in Hudson, N.Y. He is survived by his husband David Kermani.
As his New York Times obituary notes, Ashbery’s poetry is “by turns playful and elegiac, absurd and exquisite — but more than anything else, it is immediately recognizable.” Rutabagas, Daffy Duck and lunch menus (“sloppy joe on bun, scalloped corn”) appear in poems that Ashbery wrote in sestinas and other complex poetic forms.
Ashbery received so many awards that to list even a fraction of them would be mind-numbing. In 1976 alone, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award (for his collection “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.”) The many other honors Ashbery received include a MacArthur Foundation grant and the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry. In 2012, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. In a nod to his influence on pop culture, Ashbery was the first poet laureate of MtvU (an MTV subsidiary).
Ashbery, who painted when he was young and created some of his poetry with collages, was also an art critic for many years for Newsweek and other publications.
Ashbery was a, “salutary presence in modern poetry in his work,” Poetry Magazine Editor Don Share said in an e-mail to the Blade. But he also, “was generous and kind to countless people: poets, of course, but also his readers, many of whom approached him in befuddlement,” Share said, “which he always handled with bemused, gentle grace.”
Recently, “The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life,” by Karin Roffman was released. The biography takes us from Ashbery’s childhood on a farm in the village of Sodus in western New York to his departure from Manhattan at age 27 to live in Paris on a Fullbright fellowship.
Because he was so eminent and his poetry wasn’t what we think of as autobiographical or political, it’s easy to think Ashbery didn’t suffer much; that he was another white, well-off man who had it made on Mount Olympus. But Roffman’s bio tells another story.
In his youth, Ashbery was teased for being a “sissy.” Born in 1927, he couldn’t reveal his sexuality to anyone. When Ashbery was 12, his brother Richard died at age 10 from leukemia. While attending Deerfield Academy (through the largess of a neighbor), he was taunted for being queer. At Harvard, Ashbery met Frank O’Hara and Kenneth Koch and other emerging poets who would become his close friends and collaborators. Yet he still had to lead a double life, hiding his sexuality from his hetero peers. In the 1950s, Ashbery worried that he wouldn’t be able to work because the McCarthy era was so homophobic.
Roffman, a senior lecturer in humanities, English and American studies at Yale University, talked with the Blade by phone and email. She first heard Ashbery read when she was a graduate student in the early 2000s.
“I can’t begin to describe the impact that the reading had on me,” Roffman says.
She met John Ashbery when she taught at Bard College, where Ashbery was an emeritus professor.
“It was my first job after grad school,” Roffman says. “My students and I had spent time on Ashbery’s art criticism and his poetry. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have contacted him, but my students had questions and were clamoring for him to come to our class.”
Ashbery spent an hour and a half with the class.
“He couldn’t have been more open or generous,” she says.
He invited Roffman to see the house where he and Kermani lived.
“Because his poetry is so modern, I thought his house would be modern,” she says, “but I was stunned to find it was a 19th century Victorian home. It was gloomy and cozy, English in feeling.”
Roffman was just finishing a book (“From the Modernist Annex”) about women writers and their domestic spaces.
“Ashbery’s maternal grandparents were supportive of him. His grandfather was a genius. He was really encouraging to John,” she says. “In his house, John had objects like the objects in his grandparents’ house.”
She began working with Ashbery to catalogue the objects in his home. Out of this effort was born not only her biography of Ashbery, but a digital project called “John Ashbery’s Nest.” The site enables visitors to “walk” through Ashbery’s house and to learn about the objects that inspired many of his poems.
After giving her permission to write his biography, Ashbery connected Roffman with a few of his close friends. After that, he stayed out of the process.
During her research, Roffman discovered that Ashbery as a boy wrote in diaries in coded language of his attraction to boys.
“I don’t think Ashbery planned to be evasive in his poetry,” Roffman says. “He was drawn aesthetically to restraint.”
Yet, there is “emotional boldness” in his work, she says.
“And when it became time to go/they none of them would leave without the other,” Ashbery wrote in “How to Continue,” an elegy for queer life before AIDS.
“These are some hazards of the course,” he writes in “Soonest Mended.”
It’s Ashbery’s way of describing what it means to suffer, Roffman says.
“It’s understated, but moving. I go back to his poetry to be reminded of what it is to feel, to be alive.”
Poet John Ashbery speaks at a book festival in February, 2007. (Photo by David Shankbone via Wikimedia)
Kathi Wolfe, a writer and poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.
a&e features
The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
Spotlighting chaotic ways family, romance, identity take shape in their lives
Kevin Chen’s family tombstone has room for four: him, his parents and his boyfriend. The arrangement might prove to be a little awkward.
“My boyfriend is 100% white, and my parents are 100% disappointed,” Chen confessed.
Jokes about family traditions and the untraditional ways they’re practiced earned a burst of laughs at the bar where Chen was opening for the Pride Comedy Special. The D.C. stand-up event, produced by Comedy Bonfyre last month, spotlighted queer Asian comics who shared the chaotic ways family, romance and identity take shape in their lives.
From candid oral sex takes to top surgery hypotheticals like “Where do the boobs go?”, the night highlighted the loud camaraderie of the queer Asian experience — one that sounds like a cacophony of snorts, cackles and belly laughs. While the comics say they are not quite a community, there’s more than enough shared material to bring them together.
“It was such a magical experience. I loved performing in a queer API lineup. It feels so validating,” Chen said after the show. “I’m wondering, ‘Is this how white men feel all the time?’”
Each performance evoked queer Asian joy through a medium that could use more of its presence.
According to Chen, who is based in D.C., it’s hard to say whether there is a true queer Asian comedy presence in his city. There are only a scattered “handful” of Asian comics, and people of color are underrepresented in queer comic circles, he said.
When Tarunika Anand, a nonbinary lesbian comic, first entered the mainstream D.C. comedy scene, they mostly encountered straight white men, describing the experience as “a culture shock.”
“I feel like sometimes a lot of queer spaces are really white, and then a lot of Asian spaces are really straight,” Anand said. “I don’t feel like I fit into either.”
But feeling marginalized didn’t stop these comics from honing their craft and creating spaces for others like them. Alex Kim, who headlined the special and is based in Brooklyn, runs the queer Asian comedy group Boba Gays, which began on WhatsApp and has since made its way to Lincoln Center.
Every Wednesday, Anand co-produces a free comedy show called Funny Side Up. The queer-led group focuses on inclusivity and showcasing new talent.
“It’s really beautiful to speak about your experience and your existence in a way that’s uplifting,” Anand said.
Family is a major throughline of their comedic repertoires.
Chen, for instance, shared that he identifies with jokes about having Asian immigrant parents and the expectations they pass down.
“You see me, you know this part about me, you know this experience intimately, and I can see the truth that you’re trying to wrap a joke around,” he said. “That hits even harder because that’s my truth too. I think that’s what makes good comedy.”
Anand had the audience at the special howling when they explained that their parents’ be-more-like-them comparisons didn’t end when they came out. Instead, the expectations took on a new form.
“Now, my parents want me to be the best gay,” Anand said. “They’re like, ‘Do you know Ellen DeGeneres?’”
Kim said he’s been trying to unlearn things from his Christian Korean mom. Yet he described a moment when he was getting ready for the club and realized he looked just like his mother getting ready for church.
“I’ve been finding it hard to escape her,” Kim said.
Mutual recognition also radiates through the different ways queer love can take shape. From singlehood to death-do-us-part commitments, the comics cover just about every corner.
Anand is holding out hope for settling down with “a nice, pretty, Indian girl.” They recently went through a breakup and said they felt they dodged a bullet.
“As a person of color, I just don’t think I should be with a Swiftie,” they said.
Chen, touching on what it’s like to be in a queer interracial relationship, said that meeting his white boyfriend’s baby nephew for the first time felt like he was forced to participate in a diversity, equity and inclusion training.
“The dad was like, ‘Please welcome Kevin. Be curious about his culture, his history, his foods,’” Chen joked.
Laughter is not the only reward for the comics.
To Anand, comedy is a space where they can say whatever they want. “It gives me a voice,” they said.
Nik Narain, a North Carolina-based trans and nonbinary South Asian comic who performed at the special, said meeting older trans comedians and taking the stage helped him feel reassured in his identity during his transition.
“Stand-up was a really cool way to process that onstage,” he said. “[It] became a way for me to repackage my thoughts.”
Queer Asians are still figuring out their place in the greater D.C. comedy scene. The group is small in numbers and many are still working toward a full-time comedy career. But Narain feels he’s already made it.
Narain is reluctant to pin it all on one moment. He feels that success is already peeking through in milestones — opening for celebrities, traveling to performances and self-producing shows.
“As long as I can keep doing this, I’m super happy,” he said.
This story was produced as part of the AAJA VOICES fellowship program, a student journalism project of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
a&e features
Mr. Henry’s celebrates 60 years of proud inclusivity
Capitol Hill staple remains ‘a caring community’
America’s 250th isn’t the only milestone birthday D.C. is celebrating this year.
Beloved D.C. restaurant Mr. Henry’s, that Capitol Hill staple, celebrates its Diamond Jubilee all year long. Named for its original owner Henry Yaffe, the restaurant opened on a warm day 60 years ago in the summer of 1966 and has never looked back.
Yaffe took over what was then a country western restaurant, renovated the interior to his liking, and created an institution. Yet Yaffe had another goal. As a gay man, “he created Mr. Henry’s to be a place where everyone felt welcome — not easy in 1966 — and he succeeded,” says current owner Mary Quillian.
“Mr. Henry’s has long been a place the LGBTQ community has supported because they felt and still feel welcomed,” says Quillian. Even in the current administration, “the gay community and the diversity-minded community continue to come.”
Since then, Mr. Henry’s has changed hands, opened and closed its second floor, welcomed famed musical acts, and played host to politicians, date nights, breakups, and birthdays. But it still feels like home (and has a note in the National Trust for Historic Preservation) at 601 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.
Its wood-paneled, Victorian-inspired art-filled décor in the downstairs dining room and bar serves American pub fare for lunch and dinner daily, with brunch on weekends (and a dog-friendly patio). Upstairs, Mr. Henry’s hosts live jazz performances and special events most nights, continuing a musical tradition that has defined the venue for decades. That upstairs bar has played host to names like Roberta Flack and Woody Allen.
Musician Kevin Cordt said that, “Mr. Henry’s has been a part of my life for more than 30 years. I started as a customer, then became a bartender and server, and now I have the good fortune to play trumpet at one of the best live music venues in Washington, D.C.”
Aaron Myers, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, is also a supporter. “Not many cities can sport venues that have consistently served the community in the space of culture for more than 50 years, let alone can brag as the birthplace of culture defining talent.”
From the start, Yaffe promoted a rare yet celebrated combination of locals’ bar and soulful nightlife venue. Mr. Henry’s has attracted a diverse crowd at a time when such spaces were – and perhaps still are – uncommon, a diversity that is credited with helping protect the pub during the 1968 D.C. riots.
Longtime customer Evelyn Branic said, “Mr. Henry’s has been my ‘Cheers’ hangout since my wife and I moved to the Hill in 1987. I’ve experienced many iconic moments meeting politicians, reporters, civic activists, and neighbors engaging in spirited conversations. Whether political, LGBTQ, historians, neighbors, or out-of-towners, everyone could find a special place to be greeted as a friend.”
Its welcoming tables come dabbed with a bit of tea: In 1971, in a moment that has since become part of Capitol Hill lore, Yaffe lost the pub in a poker game to Larry Quillian. The Quillian family, recognizing the special role Mr. Henry’s played in the neighborhood, took over ownership, and committed to preserving its spirit. Today, Larry’s daughter Mary owns the bar, having given it a bit of a facelift for the bar’s 50th birthday, bringing in new tables and some fresh menu items.
For example, the menu has some of those dishes that regulars would riot if they disappeared. The Reuben and the hamburgers, the chili and in-house roasted turkey have never departed the menu. Dishes do evolve, says Quillen: they added wings about two decades ago.
In 2026, the restaurant is hosting monthly ticketed “decades” parties, celebrating each of the 10-year periods the restaurant’s been open, plus there were specials in June for Pride. The official 60th anniversary gala takes place Aug. 29, featuring performers, beverages, timeless favorite foods, swag – and the unveiling of a new cocktail.
Inclusive, eccentric, eclectic, Mr. Henry’s is looking forward to maintaining its centrality to diverse crowds in Capitol Hill. Battling inflation, rising menu prices, changing tastes, and thin margins, Quillian says that Mr. Henry’s has — and will always be — “a caring community for so many different folks. And THAT is why I am committed to keeping us going. Society needs places like Mr. Henry’s, now more than ever.”
a&e features
Television loses a legend, longtime ‘Will & Grace’ director James Burrows
Iconic hitmaker leaves behind a legacy of telling LGBTQ stories
You don’t have to be a pretentious film major to name 10 movie directors. But naming television directors is not that simple. They’re the unsung heroes of your favorite shows, and the late James Burrows was the television director. He passed on June 19, but his DNA runs through television history.
He directed over 1200 episodes of television and over 50 pilots. He co-created “Cheers” and directed many episodes of long-running series like “Friends,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Two and a Half Men.” You also may remember him from playing a heightened version of himself on the Lisa Kudrow comedy “The Comeback.”
He has left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ community. As recently as last year, he directed the series run of “Mid-Century Modern” starring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. He was also a longtime director of “Will & Grace” and directed every episode of the series revival. He even directed the unaired “Absolutely Fabulous” pilot with Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Johnston, and Zosia Mamet.
Not to mention he’s worked with queer icons throughout history, including Betty White and Stockard Channing on their single-season series, and Jennifer Coolidge in “2 Broke Girls.”
He started his career on shows like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and the first four seasons of “Taxi.”
He continued to work steadily and directed successful pilots that went to series for “Roc,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Dharma & Greg,” and “Wings.” He directed multiple episodes of “Friends,” “Caroline in the City,” and “Frasier.”
This magic continued into the 2000s with him directing the pilots for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and multiple episodes of “Mike & Molly,” and the entire return series of “Will & Grace.”
What was the secret to his success? He’d enact the “fun clause” in his contract. In his words, “Life is too short to deal with obnoxious leads,” he shared. “So as long as the writing is good and the cast is fun, I’m going to enjoy the experience.”
He had the magic touch, having multiple pilots turned into long-running series. He was nominated for an Emmy 24 times in 26 years and worked consistently until a year before his death.
The secret was the way he brought the cast together. He describes, “it was my job to mold them into an ensemble, and they did round into a group of people who loved each other.”
This earned him 11 Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards, including being awarded the inaugural DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Television Direction.
In a 2003 interview by the Television Academy, he was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he said, “That every night forever you can tune in somewhere, and there’ll be a show I did.”
He’s survived by his wife, Debbie, four daughters, seven grandchildren, and the countless people whose careers he launched and the countless viewers he inspired with his television legacy.
Lindsey Graham has passed away. Do LGBTQ people have a right to celebrate his death?
Literature is my companion
Hegseth announces testosterone initiative as trans troop ban continues
The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
ROSENSTEIN: Vote Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
Lindsey Graham dies at 71
Pro-trans court ruling does little for Naval healthcare worker
Parents sue Anne Arundel schools, allege officials hid child’s gender transition
Who might replace Lindsey Graham? The contenders and their LGBTQ records
Democrats are trying to disqualify trans candidates. Here’s how
-
Congress4 days agoLindsey Graham dies at 71
-
Opinions4 days ago
Pro-trans court ruling does little for Naval healthcare worker
-
Maryland3 days ago
Parents sue Anne Arundel schools, allege officials hid child’s gender transition
-
South Carolina3 days ago
Who might replace Lindsey Graham? The contenders and their LGBTQ records
