~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~it's all about the love~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Hop Against Homophobia, Bi- & Transphobia has started!

Hi y'all. Welcome to the Hop Against Homophobia, Bi- & Transphobia. Thanks for hopping along with us. Today is the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/and this is our fourth year participating.

This will be the main post for my blog, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not prepared. So rather than trying to use my own brain, I thought I'd share a favorite author, poet and playwright of mine whose story is applicable to the cause we've all come together to promote awareness for.


Oscar Wilde was a man living far beyond his period in time. He was born in 1856 in Dublin, Ireland, and the way he lived and died have made him infamous throughout the world. Many people know Wilde for his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the various plays and movies that have been made about it. One of the more well-known films in recent years was Wilde starring the fabulous Stephen Fry. If you haven't seen it, check it out.




In 1891, homosexuality was classified as a crime in England. Wilde had been having an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of a marquee. The young man's father accused Wilde of being  a homosexual and Wilde in turn sued him for libel. His suit didn't go well, and the accusations snowballed until Wilde was arrested then judged guilty on the charges of gross indecency and sodomy. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour.

Prison was the beginning to the end for Wilde and after being transferred from one prison to another, he wrote this:


From two o'clock till half past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform at Clapham Junction in convict dress and handcuffed, for the world to look at.... Of all possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came in swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement.... For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob.


Wilde was released from prison in 1897. He moved to France and rekindled his relationship with Douglas, and wrote what to me is one of his most powerful poems about his time in prison, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Once released, his health deteriorated rapidly and he eventually died from cerebral meningitis at the age of forty-six. I think he would have been appreciated for his talent and uniquenss if he was alive today, plus he was always ahead of his time in his fashion sense, too.


His remains were moved in 1909 to Père Lachaise in Paris where a large winged stone figure adorns his grave, inscribed with lines from The Ballad of Reading Gaol:


And alien tears will fill for him

Pity's long broken urn.
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

I guess my reason in sharing this is the fact that as far-fetched, disgusting, and barbaric Wilde's treatment was both in and out of prison, the thing to consider is that there are countries around the world who still create just as much chaos, pain and sometimes death for homosexuals. We see the news reports, read the articles, yet those things seem so far removed from the world we live in.


One of the goals of the HAHAT is to promote and spread this sort of awareness in any way we can. So when you're reading, listening, or seeing things that you love, there's always an opportunity to reach back into history to see what's applicable today. In closing I'm going to add a few links to some of my fave Wilde works.


The Ballad of Reading Gaol - http://www.neuroticpoets.com/wilde/poem/gaol/

A Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
The Canterbury Ghost (1887) - http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/CanGho.shtml#2
Flower of Love - http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/wilde/350/

Les Ballons


Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,

Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,

Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they climb,

Like thin globes of amethyst,
Wandering opals keeping tryst
With the rubies of the lime.

~Oscar Wilde





"I have nothing to declare except my genius."


~Oscar Wilde~

Now don't forget to visit the other blogs on the hop and visit them often. Most will post more than once this week. As for me, I can promise a few more posts including an interview with an actor I adore who has starred in the gay films from Scenes from a Gay Marriage and More Scenes from a Gay Marriage. 


Don't forget to check out and enter my Rafflcopter giveaway - I'm offering three prizes. :) 


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Keep on hoppin'


28 comments:

  1. What an awesome post! I love Oscar Wilde. To think he went though so much pain even though he hadn't harmed anyone... Why are people so evil?!

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  2. Hi K-lee. This post also makes me think of the movie The Imitation Game about Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and the horrible way he was treated. This ultimately led to his death.

    A poem I really like is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Thanks!

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  3. Thanks for the post. I look forward to reading more. As for poems, I'm not really a fan of poems. My husband is a huge Robert Frost fan. So anything by him is very good

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  4. My favourite poems are The Iliad by Homer, Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Taylor Coleridge depending on the mood I am in when I read them.

    I enjoyed reading your post, even though I already knew the story of Oscar Wilde, I found it was enjoyable to read your take on his life.

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  5. i love anything by walt whitman

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  6. Very interesting post! My favorite poem is All the World's a Stage by Shakespeare.

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  7. I think Oscar Wilde was treated so badly and also many other men who were put in prison for being homosexual have been pardoned by the British Government recently. I found this information about Alan Turning "Statement of apology by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, 10 September 2009: quite brilliant mathematician... whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war... horrifying that he was treated so inhumanely."

    ShirleyAnn(at)speakman40(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk

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  8. Oscar Wilde is one of my idols from that time, along with Beardsley.

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  9. I enjoyed the post but poetry is my not my thing we had to learn so many at school by rote it really put me off poetry!

    ShirleyAnn(at)speakman40(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk

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  10. P.S. I'm a fan of most anything by Shakespeare. I have his complete works, all the plays, poems, sonnets, etc.

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  11. Thanks for the informative post and hop. I can't answer about poetry.
    cvsimpkins@msn.com

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  12. In & Out of Time by Maya Angelou is one of my absolute favorite poems.

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  13. Scottish Tibetan Vampire? Awesome pic.

    My favorite poem is Working by Levine

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  14. I have real affection for Billeh Nickerson's "Why I Love Wayne Gretzky--An Erotic Fantasy"; he brings in the slashfic elements with such wit and style, especially in such a highfalutin genre! (It's easily found with a websearch.)

    --Trix, vitajex(at)aol(Dot)com

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  15. I think my comment got eaten, so I hope it doesn't double-post! I enjoy Billeh Nickerson's "Why I Love Wayne Gretzky--An Erotic Fantasy" (very clever and sexy slash poem, and daring of him in such a genre)!

    --Trix, vitajex(at)Aol(Dot)com

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  16. Thank you for the post! Not a fan of poems but did read a few by Mr. Wilde way back when!

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  17. Thank you for the poem and links.

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  18. poetry is NOT a favourite genre...at all! .. but My Country by Dorothea MacKellar is the one that resonates with me

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  19. Great post. Thank you for sharing.

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  20. Thank you for the informative post! I'm afraid that I am not one for poetry but the only one that I remember is The Road Not Taken.

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  21. Great post and giveaway!! Thanks for the chance!!

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  22. I don't usually read poems so I don't have a favorite. But Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost have a few that I like. Shel Silverstein is fun to read.

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  23. Jenny Joseph's When I am an Old Woman I Shall wear Purple. It is fun, but also sad we have to wait til we are old to express ourselves fully

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  24. I am not much into poems, but I love Shakespeare's works they have such nice double meanings. LOL

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  25. I'm not a big fan out poetry. Maybe it has to do with it being something we 'had' to learn about in school or maybe I just wasn't understanding the poems. Thanks for being a part of the hop and the chance to win!
    Cheers
    ~Rissa~
    raynman1979 (at) yahoo (dot) com

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  26. thanks for the info and supporting the hop.

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  27. Thanks for the great post K-lee. I love Oscar Wilde's plays. I am a big fan of O Captain my Captain by Walt Whitman.

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  28. Thank you for being part of this blog tour and one of my favourite poets is WH Auden, in particular "Stop All The Trains, Cut off the Telephone", a lament at the loss of beloved partner. I am also fond of the Maya Angelou's poem Still I Rise.... 'You may shoot me if I rise, You may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still like air I rise'

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