THE ANDROGYNE JOURNAL by James Broughton...

THE ANDROGYNE JOURNAL by James Broughton (Broken Moon Press: $10). A filmmaker and poet with more than a dozen books to his credit, Broughton chronicles the growing awareness of his body that he experienced in 1960. He describes the somewhat belated revelation (he was 47 at the time) that his body and mind contained both male and female elements in mythological terms: “In Apollo’s company I discover the fellowship of Hermes with his lyre, Pan with his pipes, Krishna with his flute, those who sing of the finite infinite and immortal mortalities.” The figure this inflated rhetoric really evokes is Narcissus: Broughton’s overweening fascination with his every thought and action--which extends to dithyrambic accounts of defecation--quickly reduces the reader to helpless giggles.