Draft:Jeffery Beam

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Jeffery Beam (born 4 April 1953,[1] Concord, North Carolina) is a gay American poet, writer, and editor who frequently collaborates with composers and visual artists.

Early life and education

Jeffery Scott Beam was born in Concord, North Carolina and grew up in nearby Kannapolis.[1] Beam attended the Kannapolis City School system, graduating in 1971 from A. L. Brown High School where he was editor of the campus newspaper, Brown Beat. Beam received his Bachelor of Creative Arts in Writing from University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1975, [1] an experimental program inspired by Black Mountain College and other independent and experimental programs. He was the editor of the campus literary magazine Sanskrit and a contributing editor to other local student publications.[2]

Work

Jeffery Beam was poetry and reviews editor of the online literary journal Oyster Boy Review from 1997 – 2014, before becoming Editor Emeritus. In 2001, he was awarded First Place for editing the Best Poetry E-zine by Writers Digest. Beam has written reviews for the Lambda Book Report, Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, and published in numerous gay literary journals and anthologies, including Son of the Male Muse and Black Men/White Men. He was a judge for the Lambda Literary Awards from 1989 to 1999.

Beam is the author of over 25 works, influenced by his friendship with poet, photographer, and The Jargon Society publisher Jonathan Williams, who died in 2008.[3] Beam's work on Williams includes co-editing with Richard Owens, The Lord of Orchards: Jonathan Williams at 80, originally an online feature in Jacket magazine,[4] which led to Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards (Prospecta Press, 2018), an expanded book-length survey of Williams' life and work.[3] A Snowflake Orchard, a personal history with a bibliography of The Jargon Society, appeared in the North Carolina Literary Review. Tales of a Jargonaut, a lightly edited interview with Jonathan Williams by Beam, was published in Rain Taxi in 2003.

Beam's book An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold, illustrated by Ippy Patterson,[5] was awarded a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. It also won a 1999 American Institute of Graphic Arts 50 Books / 50 Covers award, and a 2000 IPPY Award for one of the 10 Outstanding Small Press / Independent Publisher Books of 1999.[6] His two CD multimedia collection What We Have Lost: New and Selected Poems 1977-2001 was an Audio Publishers Award finalist.[7] His poem "Song of the University Worker" was adopted in 2009 as the official University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill staff poem.[8]

Beam and photographer John M. Hall co-curated an exhibition of Hall's photographs of Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer's Lynchburg home for the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the American South in 2015.[9] Collaborating with ceramicist Judith Ernst in 2016 led to the creation of two large vessels carved with his poems, Holding the Center (North Carolina Ceramics collection Mint Museum, Charlotte), and Pause … Now Go (North Carolina Pottery collection, BRAHM – Blowing Rock Art and History Museum).

Beam's archive is included in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Special Collections.[2] There are smaller collections at the J. Murrey Atkins Library of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; the ONE Archives at the University of Southern California; the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Personal life

A retired assistant to the Botany (later Biology) librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Beam lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with husband Stanley Fitch[1]. Their marriage in 2014 was the first legal gay marriage to be recorded in the register of the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. The events surrounding their civil ceremony were documented by journalist Raymond Whitehouse.

Selected bibliography

Limited editions of Jeffery Beam's work from fine presses include:

Visual art and collaborations

Selected poems set to music and recordings:

References

  1. Dillon, Cy (June 30, 2003). "Jeffery Beam". In Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed.). Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights: An A-to-Z Guide. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 19–24. ISBN 978-0-313-01709-4.
  2. "Finding Aid: Jeffery Beam Papers (#4888) 1968-2011". University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  3. Beam, Jeffery; Owens, Richard (September 12, 2017). "Teaching Daylilies to Read—Introduction to the Print Edition". Jonathan Williams: Lord of Orchards. Easton Studio Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-63226-088-8.
  4. "Jonathan Williams: The lord of orchards". Jacket2. February 18, 2013. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  5. Hodges, Betty (February 28, 1999). "Jeffery Beam: Poetry factory". The Herald-Sun. p. 76. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  6. "Local book gains national attention". The Chapel Hill News. July 23, 2000. pp. 1, 9. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  7. "'Winter Stories' turns Wilson into 'Wonderland'". The Chapel Hill News. December 7, 2003. p. 15. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  8. "Song of the University Worker". UNC-Chapel Hill Employee Forum. Retrieved March 24, 2026.
  9. Hall, John M.; Beam, Jeffery (July 13, 2018). "Sacred Spaces". Southern Cultures. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  10. Wiltgen, Erin (July 27, 2013). "Beam draws on the natural, spiritual in his work". News of Orange. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  11. Dillon, Cy (November 30, 2008). "Jeffery Beam (1953-)". In Hawley, John Charles (ed.). LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-0-313-08730-1.
  12. Dillon, Cy (July 14, 2009). "Beam, Jeffery (b. 1953)". In Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States: [2 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 68–69. ISBN 978-0-313-34860-0.
  13. Crowe, Thomas. "A tribute to the Lord of Scaly Mountain". Smoky Mountain News. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  14. ""Sound and Sense Take Flight" in Beam poetry". North Carolina Literary Review. November 26, 2022. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  15. Edwards, Dale (March 17, 2022). "Poet magnifies pros, cons of longings with new book". News of Orange. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  16. Roberts, Mark A. (2003). "Jeffery Beam: An Interview". Nantahala. 2 (1). ISSN 1535-1769 – via Virginia Tech University Libraries.

Further reading