Coming Unbuttoned - Softcover

Broughton, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872862801 ISBN 13: 9780872862807

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 1993

Synopsis

In his memoir Coming Unbuttoned (1993), Broughton recounts his childhood, reflects on his work, and remarks on his love affairs with both men and women.

Among his male lovers were gay activist Harry Hay and publisher Kermit Sheets.  In 1962, Broughton married Suzanna Hart. The couple was divorced in 1978. On Christmas Eve 1976, Broughton celebrated his relationship with artist Joel Singer in a marriage ceremony. Eschewing the labels homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual, the poet and filmmaker describes himself as a "pansexual androgyne."

This witty and impudent confession is the work of a cultural pioneer whose adventures among the famous and the infamous extend from New York circles of the '30s to the avant-garde antics of San Francisco in the '60s and '70s. Born a gleeful poet in a solemn family, James Broughton survived military school, Stanford University, the merchant marine and journalism before his passion for cinema and his dedication to poetry crystallized in 1948 with his first book and the first of his many films. In the '50s he worked in London and Paris; and for many years he occupied a special place in the San Francisco Bay Area as a performer, playwright and professor.

In "Coming Unbuttoned" Broughton shares intimate memories of Anais Nin, Alan Watts, Robert Duncan, Maya Deren, Jean Cocteau, W.H. Auden, Pauline Kael, Kenneth Rexroth, Robinson Jeffers, and the poets of the Beat Generation.

About this title

From the Author:

I have not included in this book everything I think I know not everyone I may have met.  I have not tried to be polite or fair or thorough.  I have recorded only what amused me to recall.

Memory may forget a lot but it never forgets what should have occurred.  All the events in this book are true, including those that did not happen. 

If a reader finds this chronicle uneven, unclear, or unbelievable I would reply that such was my experience of life.

From the Back Cover:

"James Broughton does everything from beyond wit's end, turning all his difficulties into The Delightful.  He has hoisted a god's-eye-view of the world of human follies and has developed a rhythmic complexity to sustain it.  He is the only artist I know who has been equally true to Poetry, Theater, and Film, transforming all three into an act of lifelong montage."  -- Stan Brakhage

About this edition

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0872862801
• ISBN 13: 9780872862807
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 155