Description

Part tribute, part rallying cry

Dear Beautiful Gay

by Mary Warren Foulk

In 2021, Mary’s Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter) won The Poetry Box’s annual chapbook competition. A hybrid erasure collection, she attempted a redaction, flipping the meaning of her coming out letter and the act itself on its head. Mary was influenced by the work of Jen Bervin, Mary Ruefle, and Ángel García. What if she never had to “come out”? Never had to write such a letter? What if the process was rendered unnecessary—erased? What might she have done with that energy if it hadn’t been exerted on hiding, on passing, on fear, on denial? A few of the questions asked and answered.

Dear Beautiful Gay is a companion collection. Mary remained haunted by the letter and felt there was much more to say. In this current climate and political context, she decided to craft a love letter to her younger self, to her older brother Stephen, to her LGBTQ+ students, family and friends, to all the “Beautiful Gays” in her life. She felt an urgency and a need to celebrate their collective humanity. It is part tribute, part rallying cry.

Early Praise:

Proving herself to be a master of the erasure form, Mary Warren Foulk revisits the 2002 coming out letter she wrote to her mother, which she so beautifully mined for her award-winning collection Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter). Beginning as a tender message of support to her younger self, Dear Beautiful Gay becomes a celebration of— and rallying cry to— friends and family under threat by a society that persists in perceiving them as being outside “the norm.” To read this stunning collection is to experience new waves of meaning and emotion with each poem, not the least of which was my wish that Foulk’s mother (parents) had responded to her coming out with the same loving acceptance that Foulk offers every beautiful gay.

—Linda Ferguson, award-winning writer, author of Of the Forest and Not Me: Poems About Other Women

In a letter, Mary Warren Foulk began her plea to her mother to understand her committed relationship with a woman. A letter meant to open discussion. She looks again at the letter and sees words and phrases embedded, addresses to Dear Beautiful Gay. Her erasures reimagine the letter to yield affirmations, statements of support, and love. The content finds possible rejection but also acceptance and respect. Foulk advises not to be silent, hidden or denying. Dear Beautiful Gay is an exquisite work of erasure that ends with hope, love, and trust for every one of the beautiful gays.

—Tricia Knoll, poet of The Unknown Daughter and Wild Apples

About the Author

A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, Mary Warren Foulk (she/her) has been published in The Hollins Critic, Palette Poetry, Fjords Review, Clockhouse, Silkworm, The Gay & Lesbian Review, and North American Review, among other publications. Her work also has appeared in Who’s Your Mama? The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers (Soft Skull Press), (M)othering Anthology (Inanna Publications), and My Loves: A Digital Anthology of Queer Love Poems (Ghost City Press). She has two award-winning chapbooks, If I Could Write You a Happier Ending (dancing girl press) and Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter) (The Poetry Box). Her newest collection, The Show Must Go On (Fernwood Press, 2025), was a finalist for the 2021 Gival Press Poetry Award, and the Inlandia Institute’s 2022 Hillary Gravendyk Prize, and a semi-finalist for the Word Works’ 2022 Washington Prize.