Earl Lind

“ The young bloods pardoned me—they said—
⁠For wearing hated breeches!
"For thou art not a real male;
⁠Thou'rt like yon winking witches
Who throng these noisy promenades
⁠Their favors fair to sell;
And kissing thee we deem as sweet
⁠As kissing ma'moiZelle!
"Lik'st thou that we thee sweetheart call?—
⁠We'll humor thy desire;
Sit on our laps while we sip wine;
⁠Let's flirt until we tire;
To break thy shapely corset stays,
⁠We'll try our best, dear Jenn;
But thou must mimic maid thy best;
⁠For us:—the part of men!" . . . . ”

“ In that proportion of their work, these poets of the first rank show themselves up merely as bad rhymesters.
The editor of The Female-Impersonators declared "the book would be better off without" my verse, but has kindly humored my wish to include it. The reader's verdict may be that I, too, am merely a bad rhymester, and thus put my work on a level with the vast bulk of the outpourings and outdronings of our best poets.
But I, as a would-be poet, labor under the disadvantage of expressing sentiments of an androgyne. ”

“ In the book, you have claimed culture, but when your readers come to this verse, they will say that no one with the culture of a longshoreman would try to pass off such stuff as verse even in fun, and that if you had the slightest tincture of literary taste, you would realize this. You will go down to posterity in ridicule, and destroy all the good your books might otherwise do. ”

“ Even if there should really be any poetry in my own outdronings, no one but another cndrogyne could recognize the fact, since it is next to impossible for anybody to appreciate any literature unless they can make its sentiments their own and identify themselves with one of the characters. And the sexually full-fledged, who constitute more than ninety-nine per cent of the reading public, are obsessed by an irrational horror of androgynes.
I therefore beg the reader, in judging the following verse, to bear in mind that it is not written by a man about men, as the reader first thinks ”

“ But I persist in including the verse. If the quoted verdict is correct, than I have "a screw loose" intellectually, as well as being sexually and anatomically "a freak of Nature." The published pieces show the psychologist what ultra-androgyne verse is like. Besides, possible androgyne readers may be able to appreciate this verse.
As three out of the four following "attempts" were first conceived only in January, 1922—after The Female-Impersonators had gone to press—it has been impossible that they benefit by the author's judgment after they have grown cold. ”