The New Beautiful Tendons: Collected Queer Poems, 1969-2012

Poetry is an enrapturing process that intensifies the discovery of experience and only what arises out of this urgency produces utterance that is distinctive and honest. Here in these sinewy acts shine the mobilities of praise, the delight in the body’s beauty and its surprises, the wonder of beholding energy and love. Thepoems are glimpses of sensual epiphanies, lightning flashes on the dramatic heart of event, memories from the crux of dream. Here are secrets that lie within the adventures of desire. Pursue them, and participate in the pleasure. —James BroughtonJeffery Beam’s The Beautiful Tendons proves what many of us have known for some time: he is one of our most important and valuable poets. No matter what he touches on, it is always observed with Beam’s precise and careful eye in spare, direct language that’s as fresh as a sunrise and the sweet air of morning. Read these poems and brighten your day. I guarantee it. —Michael RumakerAll children should hear you, the universe glistening. The spirit of poetry and nature and Eros are carried forth into and for the future. You are one of the poets I feel closest to — kindred spirit in love with the natural world and kindred spirit of awe and affection to our own kind. Feather to feather, wing to wing.—AntlerThese juicy poems, at the intersection of spirituality and sexuality, leave me breathless with their erotic thrust. —Edward Field

Jeffery Beam is the author of numerous works of poetry and songs. His work was surveyed in Greenwood Press' Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights: An A-Z Guide, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States, and Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Queer America Today Encyclopedia. He is currently at work on a number of projects including a song cycle with Steven Serpa inspired by Benjamin Britten's "Six Metamorphoses after Ovid." Beam's work has appeared in many publications including The Advocate, The American Book Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights, Big Bridge, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States, Encyclopedia of North Carolina, Garden Design, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Lambda Book Report, The North Carolina Literary Review, Rain Taxi, Small Press Review, Smithsonian, The Sun, and Yellow Silk. His works have received numerous awards and grants including four American Library Association Notable Book and Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction Award nominations, two Pushcart nominations, an IPPY Ten Best Books Award, an Audie Award, an AIGA 50 Best Books Award, a Writer's Digest Editor award for best E-Zine poetry outlet, a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a Duke University Chronicle award, a Provost Award for Public Service from the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Public Service, and a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. Born and raised in Kannapolis, North Carolina, Jeffery lives in Hillsborough, NC with his partner of 33 years, Stanley Finch. He serves as poetry editor for Oyster Boy Review. He recently retired from his position as the Assistant to the Biology Librarian in the Botany Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For ten years he served as a judge for the Lambda Book Awards.