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Boy Mad
1995

baritone
piano

duration 17' 

commissioned by Paul Guttry 
first performance
Paul Guttry and Michael Beattie
Emmanuel Library, Boston / May 21, 1997

SCORE
Leaving the Boys Behind
The Roman Camp
The Six Don'ts
Burn, Cupid
My Sex Experience with Randall Jarrell
We've Got to Stop Meeting like this, I Think Herbert's Getting Suspicious
The Six Don'ts
Poem

RECORDING—August 2000 Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood performance by Drew Poling

PROGRAM NOTE
ABoy Mad sets two poems from The Greek Anthology, a huge collection of Greek texts spanning thirteen hundred years and assembled by Byzantine scholars in the 13th Century; a poem by Christopher Isherwood, the British novelist and early collaborator with Auden; two poems by Gary Ralph and two poems (one of which is set twice as a little epigram between longer songs) by Steve Levine, both contemporary American poets. While only three of these poems are explicitly about being gay, all share a kind of sly recklessness and wry humor which borders on the camp. Boy Mad is not a cycle—it has no narrative—it can, however, be seen as a loosely sketched trip through aspects of gayness, ancient to modern. In Leaving the Boys Behind Rufinus speaks of moving from youthful dalliances with boys to the, rather cruelly delineated, pleasures of women;The Roman Camp sets Isherwood's poem On His Queerness, which uses 'the Roman Camp' and 'the Aquarium' as metaphors for, respectively, homosexual and heterosexual love; The(First) Six Don'ts is spat out, angry, proscriptive; Burn, Cupid by Meleager, also from The Greek Anthology, is a petulant and impassioned plea for a respite from incessant concupiscence; My Sex Experience with Randall Jarrell is a modern fantasy in which the participants are civilized and pleasing, and their behavior thoroughly unlikely; in We've Got to Stop Meeting Like This, I Think Herbert's Getting Suspicious two men are "fated not to meet,” despite the best efforts of an admirer; The (Second) Six Don'ts is a less panicky and prickly setting than before; and Poem is an all-encompassing, what-the-hell song of freedom, liberation and "reckless ecstasy."

TEXTS
Leaving the Boys Behind
boy-mad no longer
             as once before
                         I am called
woman-mad now
                         from scabbard to thimble 
instead of boy's unalloyed skin
                                  I go in for
chalky complexions
                      and the added-on crusts 
                                               of cochineal
dolphins shall pasture
                              in the Black Forest
and nervous deer
                              in the grey sea 
Rufinus (?200–?395) trans. Alan Marshfield 


On his Queerness 
When I was young and wanted to see the sights,
They told me: “Cast an eye over the Roman Camp
If you care to,
But plan to spend most of your day at the Aquarium—
Because, after all, the Aquarium—
Well, I mean to say, the Aquarium—
Till you've seen the Aquarium you ain't seen 
nothing.” 

So I cast an eye over
The Roman Camp—
And that old Roman Camp,
That old, old Roman Camp
Got me
Interested. 

So that now, near closing-time,
I find that I still know nothing—
. . . About fish.” 
Christopher Isherwood (1906–1986) 


The Six Don'ts
The six Don'ts don't
don't don't don't
don't don't 
Steve Levine (b.1953) 


Burn, Cupid
By Cypris, Cupid!
I'll burn the Bow!
burn the Arrows!
burn that fancy
Scythian Quiver!
burn, Cupid, burn
love's bitter
armoury.
You titter? 
Why? You wrinkle up
your silly nose?
You'll titter when
I've clipped those wings
turned lust to lead
& bound brass bands
about your feet.
But chained too near
where my Heart lies,
that were indeed
to set the lynx
to watch the fold–
best I did not
seek to best you:
take instead these
feathered shoes, on them
& those incal-
culable wings
go!–plague elsewhere
some other (yet
ingenuous)
devotee of
Fairest Cypris. 
Meleager (c.140BC–c.70BC) trans. Peter Whigham 


My Sex Experience with Randall Jarrell
The other day
I bought a book with a photograph in it
of the American poet Randall Jarrell,
a man with whom I think I might have agreed about a lot of things,
and it turns out he's also irresistibly handsome. 
Well, I think so. 

If we had met,
and if he had cared to get to know me
(which I think is likely) . . . 

(Here, in the original draft of this poem,
I inserted a charming sexual fantasy,
not overly explicit in its narration.) 

. . . and his wife would ask him, “Did you have fun
during the weekend you spent in bed with Gary Ralph?” 

And Randall would tell me about it later
and I would send her a bouquet of flowers
with a note attached, saying:
“You are the most understanding woman who ever lived.” 

Questions: (to enhance your appreciation of the poem) 

The author's main purpose seems to be to
couple his name with that of the well-known
American poet Randall Jarrell.
Do his motives include:
I) self-aggrandizement?
II) scandal-mongering?
III) desire for literary and intellectual companionship?
IV) sexual loneliness?
V) all of the above? 

Have you ever thought about how lonely it is,
being in a poem? Wouldn't you like to meet 
someone there, and, if possible, even go to bed
with him? Aren't you jealous of Gary Ralph?
(I am!) 
Gary Ralph (b.1961) 


We've Got to Stop Meeting like this, I Think Herbert's Getting Suspicious
The well-known English poet,
George Herbert never knew
The well-known Polish poet 
Whose name is Herbert, too. 

I've tried to introduce them;
It could have been so sweet,
But George and Zbigniew Herbert
Seem fated not to meet. 

Although they touch as neighbors
On many bookstore shelves,
They both defeat my labors
To introduce their selves. 

I offered to unite them
In friendship's sacred bond,
But George and Zbigniew Herbert
Neglected to respond. 

I get along with Auden;
I think a lot of Lear; 
My love for Randall Jarrell
Is infamously clear; 

It's hard to think that poets
Should ever feel alone,
But George and Zbigniew Herbert 
Must manage on their own 
Gary Ralph (b.1961) 


The Six Don'ts
The six Don'ts don't
don't don't don't
don't don't 
Steve Levine (b.1953) 


Poem
Good morning you will be loved
On this glorious day
You will be hated, both
Kissed and despised. Good 
Morning bright steps rising
To brown stone buildings
Colorful individuals angling
Down them toward the train—
Sadly heedlessly or in inspired
Reckless ecstasy on this glorious
Day you will love you will hate both
Kiss and despise. The grotesque beauty
The radiantly ugly the genius or the just
Plain foolish and goofy, good morning
All! On this glorious day the boundless 
White beret is on your lovely heads go ahead
love and be loved hate and be hated kiss
and despise be kissed and despised! 
Steve Levine (b.1953)