Special ArLiJo-Issue 224b- LGBTQ+-2026

Robert L. Giron
Aug 19
6 min read

Updated: Aug 26

Jeff Walt of Palm Desert, CA wins the 25th Annual Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award-2026, for his poem “Why I Like to Write Poems in Gay Bars.” Congratulations! Prize $500.00 and publication in Gival Press websites. This 2026 win makes Jeff Walt a three-time winner of the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award. His poem was chosen anonymously by judge Jeff Mann.

Winner of the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award-2026

Why I Like to Write Poems in Gay Bars

Because this catty bunch perch like gargoyles at the end of the bar, old queens in eyeliner and caftans who heckle each other & hiss judgments:

“Don’t get your hopes up. I mean, look at you. I have standards,”

which land like blessings

when they finally turn their mascaraed eyes on me:

Toss him out--he's writing a song about us!

They order Rose Kennedy rounds in joyful communion. This bar their church.

Because the jukebox still bleeds Whitney, Madonna, Aretha—and the videos loop

go-go boys in glitter jock straps writhing for no one

in particular & everyone at once.

Because these old timers bring birthday cake & raise a glass

of wine every June to Judy Garland,

swearing they felt freedom in the gut

the night the first brick flew—Still do!

All around the bar affirming

triple air snaps.

Because the svelte twinks arrive past noon

in neon tank tops, posing

for social media shots, flapping their wrists, their youth a glittering, smoky-eyed bit

of chic violence that makes me laugh and ache for my own sweet, vanished body.

Because sometimes a straight man wanders in—all cologne & confusion—leans close

in the bathroom stall to whisper

what he can’t say out in the brightness.

Because here, I am witness—to grief, to lust, to survival—all of us spilling our tea, dishing

on dead movie stars, raising glass after glass to the simple miracle of finding each other in all that rainbowed darkness.

About the Author

Jeff Walt was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania among a community of coal miners, brick-layers, and railroad workers. His chapbook, Soot, was awarded co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize and published in 2010 by Seven Kitchens Press. He’s been awarded writing residencies from The MacDowell Colony, The Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, and Kalani Eco-village on the Big Island of Hawaii. His poems have appeared in journals such as Los Angeles Review, Alligator Juniper, Cimarron Review, The Sun, Connecticut Review, Inkwell, New Millennium Writings, The Good Men Project, Harpur Palate, Cream City Review, The Ledge, and Slipstream. Several poems from Soot were selected and scored by composer David Sisco and performed at Carnegie Hall on November 14, 2014. His book, Leave Smoke, was published on Oct. 1, 2019 by Gival Press and was awarded the 2020 Housatonic Book Award given by the Western Connecticut State University MFA Program “…to promote excellent writing, to identify authors who serve as professional role models for writing students….” Leave Smoke was awarded Runner-Up in Poetry in the 2020 San Francisco Book Festival annual competition honoring the best books of the spring. Also, Jeff is the Founder and Director of the Desert Rat Residency for Writers in Palm Desert, CA which sponsors The Desert Rat Poetry & Fiction Prize. Visit: www.jeffwalt.com

About the Judge:

Jeff Mann has published six books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash, A Romantic Mann, Rebels, and Redneck Bouquet; three collections of essays, Edge, Binding the God, and Endangered Species; a memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; six novels, Fog, Purgatory, Cub, Salvation, Country, and Insatiable; one graphic novel, Highland Moon; and four volumes of short fiction, A History of Barbed Wire, Desire and Devour, Consent, and The Sagas of Mann. With Julia Watts, he co-editedLGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia. The winner of two Lambda Literary Awards, he teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech.

Finalists:

"Terratogenesis," by SP Mulroy of New York, NY.

"Cartography," by Joe Carrithers of Brea, CA.

"on freedom," by Brendan Csaposs of Nairobi, Kenya.

"Pink," by Liz Bruce of Greensboro, NC.

The following poems appear by permission of the poets who were finalists.

SP Mulroy

Teratogenesis

An hour after over-powering me

on a park bench in a public garden,

he drove back home to his wife and family

in the suburbs, parked his truck

in the garage,

and stepping lightly as a guilty dog, his shoulders

low, he skulked upstairs in silence, careful

not to wake them.

This is a surmise.

I can’t be sure if he had

a garage.

The long past moment,

evidenceless act, I don’t remember much about

that night, or him—

his belly, mushroom white

and soft, with fine hair, copper colored,

climbing

shiny from the waistband of his pants.

The vulgar twitch behind his fly, a rat

held underwater gasping to unzip.

He chipped my teeth

with his thick wedding ring,

as he shoved all four fingers past my

tongue, my empty threats, in search of deeper emptiness,

a hollow he could fill.

He taught me

what some married men will do with

teenage boys they meet in darkness, what they’re

capable of doing, when they’re certain

nobody has seen their face.

About the Author

Sean Patrick Mulroy, a writer and multi-disciplinary artist, is an internationally recognized poet, performer and award-winning professor. Mulroy has given lectures on history, poetry, politics, and queer rights, as well as readings of his own creative work, in bars, museums, schools, embassies, theater festivals, and underground clubs on 4 continents, in over 30 countries. A 2013 Lambda Literary Fellow, 2018 Writer-in-Residence at The Kerouac Project in Orlando, Florida, recipient of the 2019 Margaret Reid Prize for Formal Verse, winner of the 2015 Christopher Hewitt Award, and winner of the 2020 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest, Mulroy's work has appeared in The Journal, Assaracus, The New York Times, Muzzle, and The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, among several others. Mulroy’s debut poetry collection, Hated for the Gods, was published by Button Poetry in 2023. Born and raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia, he now lives in NYC.

Joe Carrithers

Cartography

You were a poolside Adonis

letting a thin stream of water

trace highways along your sides

as you lay near me.

I watched you stretch

the length of your body

on the plastic lounge chair,

arms above your head,

black eyes closed,

colt-like legs apart,

feet solid,

as water swirled to the concrete.

When you awakened,

your skin flushed pink from sunlight,

you searched for the escape

I had already planned,

the trail to this bed,

really just a mattress on the floor

of my apartment.

We followed the path quickly,

willingly.

Sunrise brought questions.

I wondered:

When will you wake up?

Do you always sleep so peacefully?

Are you a morning person?

How do you like your coffee?

Do you like coffee?

Do you like me?

Your smooth muscled arm,

flesh the color of this California morning sky,

cool around my torso,

pulled me to you,

our breathing parallel.

I woke from the blond of your hair

brushing my neck,

making it tingle,

starting my desire

for today’s journey.

I felt your breath

warm on my shoulders.

I watched you

asleep in my white cotton briefs

(a present from my mother—

she never knows what to buy).

Which path to choose?

Which decision to make?

I still wonder:

Will you stay with me?

Can we live together?

Are you happy?

Will you shave today?

Do you love me?

Do I love you?

I began to chart

the terrain of your body again,

making a map

for further explorations.

About the Author

Joe Carrithers lives in Southern California with his husband. He’s been writing poetry since he was in junior high school in Mississippi, but he spends most of his time nowadays teaching college writing, critical thinking, and literature courses as a professor of English at a community college.

Dr. Brendan Csaposs

on freedom

freedom is

the rush

of kissing your

lover amidst the

crowd —

the tickle & pull as your

beards entwine

the inhalation of

musky scent

old leather and cigars

a whiff of

speed stick

— A girthy mass

pressed gently yet

firmly against your thigh

the exhilaration of the

promised exploration

— later — in the grasping dark

but for now it’s

a forethought in this

crowded room

you regard askant

with

no fear.

freedom is

the crisp whisper of

cool night air across

the top of cheeks

nestled in athletic gear

the jellicle squiggles of

leather on leather

the eyes that

ooze and slither on

exposed ink and

flesh and fur

the

anticipation of

a finger sliding over

exposed skin as

he leads you to a

dank corner to

travel your depths

to leave you

Heaving and hovering

awaiting the

next conquest that

wanders the dark in

search of

safe portage

with

no fear.

freedom is exquisite joy

built on the aged

timbers of

a teetering tower of

sorrow and suffering.

freedom is no fear

except

the fear of

losing

these freedoms and the

lashing pains that

brought them writhing &

screaming to the light.

freedom is no fear

except to

lose it all.

About the Author

Dr. Brendan Csaposs is a creative, educator, and consultant based in Nairobi, Kenya. His poetry explores intimacy, memory, queer desire, place, and the quiet violences of longing. His recent work is concerned with love across distance, the failures of language to capture the full range of human emotion, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive connections at their beginning and termination. alongside his creative work, he designs learning programmes and leads education and social impact projects across East & West Africa.