Description

• 6:30 Reception
• 7:00-8:00 Curated Reading

On the evening of Sunday, July 9th, in conjunction with our Pride month mini-exhibit Maximus to Aquarius: Gerrit Lansing and Set Magazine, opening June 7th, the Hammond Castle Museum will host a reception and curated reading celebrating the legacy of Gloucester and the Museum as significant sites in the history of Queer American poetry. Throughout his remarkable life, our founder John Hays Hammond Jr. (b. 1888-d.1965) was a part of a fascinatingly diverse community of Queer individuals, which met at his architecturally unique Museum, called the city of Gloucester home, and stretched from Cape Ann across the country and beyond. In examining our Museum’s archive, Hammond’s correspondence with these people, among whom were some of the inventor's closest friends and loved ones, paints a small picture of a vast network of deeply creative individuals which was the lifeblood of a fundamentally transformative period in the history of Gloucester, and America’s, cultural identity. 

This Pride Month, join members of the community in celebrating this important and often overlooked aspect of local history and culture. With readings by community members from works by Charles Olson, John Wieners, Robert Duncan, Gerrit Lansing, Daisy Alden, and many others, including, for the first time, newly unearthed poems by John Hays Hammond Jr. himself. Along the way, learn about these figures' ongoing relationships—their friendships, rivalries, and romances, with one another—and their personal significance within the broader tapestry of Queer history. The evening will culminate in a reading of a unique illuminated version of  Abbadia Mare, a poem written by Gerrit Lansing in the Museum’s Guest Book in 1959 about the building and personally dedicated to Hammond. 

We hope you will join us in celebrating a night of Poetry & Pride at Hammond Castle Museum!