Beam, Jeffery, 1953-

Jeffery Scott Beam (1953- ) is a North Carolina poet.

From the description of Jeffery Beam papers, ca. 1968-2007. WorldCat record id: 38149761

Jeffery Beam's lyrical, metaphysical work fuses the physical and spiritual worlds, creating a conversation between the natural world, the body, and the spirit. Beam is the author of nine books of poems, The Golden Legend (Floating Island, 1981), Two Preludes for the Beautiful (Universal, 1981, limited edition), Midwinter Fires (French Broad, 1990, nominated for a 1991-1992 Pushcart Prize), The Fountain (North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1992, nominated as a Notable Book by the American Library Association), Visions of Dame Kind (The Jargon Society, 1995), Submergences (Off the Cuff Books, 1997, nominated for an American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award), little (diminishing books, Green Finch Press, 1997), Light & Shadow: The Photographs of Claire Yaffa (Aperture Books, 1997), and An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold (Horse & Buggy Press, 1999, awarded an 2000 IPPY Award as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year--with a special notation for Best Book Arts Craftsmanship from Independent Publisher magazine, awarded one of the 50 Books 2000 Awards from the American Institute for the Graphic Arts).

Two recently completed volumes seek publishers: The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems, 1977-2000, and The Broken Flower. He is currently at work on a enhanced compact disk of new and selected poems entitled What We Have Lost, the libretto for an opera on the myth of Demeter and Persephone, a poem sequence The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues, They Say: A Commonplace Book on Poetry and the Spirit, and a manuscript The Life of the Bee. The distinguished composer Lee Hoiby has recently accepted a commission to set five of the Life of the Bee poems to music. This work will premier in late spring 2002 at the opening celebrations of the new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute for the Arts and Humanities building.

Beam has published widely in small magazines and anthologies, including Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry, The Son of the Male Muse, Earth and Soul: A Russion/English Anthology of North Carolina Poetry, The Asheville Poetry Review, Brightleaf A Southern Review of Books, North Carolina Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, Sparks of fire: Blake in a New Age, The Double Dealer Redux, Cardinal, The Carolina Quarterly, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, modern words, Evergreen Chronicles, Oyster Boy Review, The James White Review, Gay Roots: 20 Years of Gay Sunshine, The Worcester Review, Dreamworks, Black Men/White Men, Kiss of the Whip, and Yellow Silk (first ten year anthology). In 1998, his short poems were subject of a special issue of Hummingbird: The Magazine of the Short Poem . In late 2000, his work will be featured in Charlotte, North Carolina's Main Street Rag . His book reviews and criticism have appeared in The Advocate, Smithsonian, The Front Page, Garden Design, The North Carolina Literary Review, The American Book Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, The Independent Weekly, Small Press Review, Yellow Silk, and loblolly .

Beam has been a judge in the Poetry Division of the Lambda Book Awards for ten years, and, in 1996, served as preliminary judge in The Independent Weekly 's annual poetry contest. In the spring 1996, he began teaching workshops, among them The Dog of Art in the Garden of Toads, and Fossil Poetry: Seeing the Word, Hearing the World, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network. With grants and other support from the Durham and Orange County Arts Council, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Duke Museum of Art, the North Carolina Zoological Park, and private contributions, the publication of An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold included exhibitions at DUMA, the North Carolina Zoological Park, and readings and interactive presentations across North Carolina during 1999. The Duke University student newspaper, The Chronicle, chose the Bestiary exhibit as the best exhibit on campus during the academic year 1998-1999. Beam was recently interviewed for the Duke Triangle Rainbow Oral History Project.

Beam is the recipient of a 1991 Orange County Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council, a 1998-1999 Grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and a 2000 Office of the Provost Public Service Award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for Public Service. In 2000, he served as one of ten notable Parade Masters for the North Carolina Gay Pride Parade. He and his poetry are the subject of North Carolina filmmaker Tom Whiteside's experimental film, PoemBeam . The author, born and raised in Kannapolis, N.C., earned his Bachelor of Creative Arts from University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1975. At UNCC, he served as first poetry editor, then editor of the arts magazine Sanskrit .

Poetry editor of Oyster Boy Review (www.oysterboyreview.com), and an occasional contributor to Lambda Book Review, Beam is also known for readings that bring together music, poetry, and theater. Beam oftentimes sings his own poems as well as the poetry of others, incorporating Afro-American and Bluegrass gospel, show tunes, and folk songs into his performances. 2000 marks the eighth year he will perform Winter Stories for Children of All Ages at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Hillsborough, N.C., and works as the assistant to the biology librarian in the Botany Library at the UNC-Chapel Hill.

(Biographical note supplied by Jeffery Beam, February 2001.)

From the guide to the Jeffery Beam Papers (#4888), ca. 1968-2007, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)