Don't Say

A cento of LGBT writers.

Some months back in response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida I put together a poem made of quotations from queer writers, singers, poets, and celebrities containing the word science. It was about 63 lines. Which seemed long!

But! I recently picked up the anthology Against Expression, in which I learned that poems made of quotations like this are called centos—and originally centos were 100 lines. So I was like, “well it’s okay for it to be just 63 lines” and then I immediately started expanding it so it would be 100.

I finally finished the whole thing, and it’s below for subscribers. The first line is by Jacqueline Koyanagi, which is why I’ve got her book cover up there. (I list all the writers in order by line after the poem.)