Tim Dlugos

Tim Dlugos was an gay American poet.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts on August 5, 1950, Francis Timothy Dlugos later grew up in Arlington, Virginia.

In 1968 Dlugos joined the Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious order and entered their college, La Salle College, in Philadelphia, PA. He left the Brothers a few years later in 1971 to openly embrace a politically active, Gay lifestyle. He eventually left La Salle before graduating and moved back to Washington, D.C..

Dlugos worked on Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and become heavily involved with the Mass Transit poetry scene. His first book of poetry, "High There", was published by the groundbreaking Some of Us Press.

Describing his poetry in "None of the Above", an early anthology in which Dlugos appeared, he stated: "1. I try to write out of the time & space I find myself in. 2. My best work takes the 'timeless' -- spontaneous goofs, flights, body motions -- & drags it onto timeline, the 'real world' where most of us live. I am 'successful' when the language (clean combination of words) takes me or someone else back to the original combination of feelings & perceptions 'out there,' or somewhere equally nice. 3. My work is part of the nostalgia craze; all of it reminds me of where I used to be. 4. Grace, in a very orthodox sense, is my major preoccupation."

Dlugos moved to New York City in the late seventies where he edited and contributed to such magazines as "Christopher Street", "New York Native", and "The Poetry Project Newsletter". He read everywhere and with almost everyone involved the downtown scene. Whether writing about pop culture, New York, being Gay, alcoholism, or AIDS, content always came secondary to style in Dlugos' poetry. His poetry was published widely in various journals including BOMB Magazine, The Paris Review and the Washington Review.

Sometime after being diagnosed HIV positive, Dlugos decided to abandon his career as a fundraiser to become a priest in the Episcopalian church where he could utilize and express his experiences as a gay man.

While studying at the Yale School of Divinity, Dlugos died of AIDS related complications on December 3, 1990.

In 1996, David Trinidad released a selected edition of Dlugos' poetry. In 2009 Trinidad will release Dlugos' Collected Poetry.

Books

* 1973 "High There" (Some of Us Press)
* 1977 "For Years" (Jawbone Press)
* 1979 "Je Suis Ein Americano" (Little Caesar Press)
* 1980 "Coming Attractions" (Little Caesar Press)
* 1981 "Incredible Risks". (Hard Press)
* 1982 "A Fast Life" (Sherwood Press)
* 1982 "Entre Nous" (Little Caesar Press)
* 1992 "Strong Place: Poems" (Amethyst Press)
* 1996 "Powerless: Selected Poems". Ed. David Trinidad (High Risk Press)
* 2008 "Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos"