- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Kindred Spirits
- 2 Intimacy in Language
- 3 Laughter for Dessert
- 4 The Poetry of Ping-Pong
- 5 Days of Chess and Backgammon
- 6 Inventing a Language for Love
- 7 Poetry on the Porch
- 8 All My Trials
- 9 The AIDS Poets
- 10 Oh Did You See the Ashes Come Thickly Falling Down?
- 11 The POEMobile Dreams of Peace
- 12 Free Market Flavor
- 13 The Poetry in Science
- 14 Navigating Transitions
- 15 The Human Unit of Time
- 16 Your Body as Symbol
- 17 Intimations of Immortality
- 18 God Is in the Details
- 19 Breath on the Mirror
- 20 The Best Stories versus My Story
- 21 The Grease Lamp’s Flicker and Flare
- 22 Lion’s Gate
- 23 Rock and Word
- For Further Reading
- Permissions
The AIDS Poets
The AIDS Poets
Living with Dying
- Chapter:
- (p.98) 9 The AIDS Poets
- Source:
- The Poetry of Everyday Life
- Author(s):
Steve Zeitlin
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter looks at how poetry has been used to serve people with AIDS at the AIDS Day Treatment Program, located on West Twentieth Street in New York City. At the center, the wall leading to the cafeteria is lined with poems, many from poets who have passed away. According to Lila Zeiger, creative and social director, the poems show the shift in the city's AIDS population, from the gay men and drag queens who died in great numbers in the 1980s to the many African Americans and Latinos who succumbed to the disease in the 1990s. Lila, an accomplished, widely published poet herself, taught creative writing informally at the center for eighteen years, from the early 1990s until her retirement in 2000. Her goal was to help her clients express their pain and leave a legacy. Lila passed away in 2013 at the age of eighty-four. Her family chose to hold her memorial service at the AIDS Day Treatment Program.
Keywords: poetry, people with AIDS, AIDS Day Treatment Program, New York City, poems, poets, Lila Zeiger, gay men, drag queens, creative writing
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Kindred Spirits
- 2 Intimacy in Language
- 3 Laughter for Dessert
- 4 The Poetry of Ping-Pong
- 5 Days of Chess and Backgammon
- 6 Inventing a Language for Love
- 7 Poetry on the Porch
- 8 All My Trials
- 9 The AIDS Poets
- 10 Oh Did You See the Ashes Come Thickly Falling Down?
- 11 The POEMobile Dreams of Peace
- 12 Free Market Flavor
- 13 The Poetry in Science
- 14 Navigating Transitions
- 15 The Human Unit of Time
- 16 Your Body as Symbol
- 17 Intimations of Immortality
- 18 God Is in the Details
- 19 Breath on the Mirror
- 20 The Best Stories versus My Story
- 21 The Grease Lamp’s Flicker and Flare
- 22 Lion’s Gate
- 23 Rock and Word
- For Further Reading
- Permissions