Men’s Culture

by Sidney Miller

The true meaning of a social movement is not found in official pronouncements, constitutions, or minutes of meetings… nor in the dry words of historical or social analysis. Rather, one must look to the prophetic visions and landscapes of the writers, artists, and musicians who lived that experience, for a human record of the stormy Mondays and melancholy Tuesdays of that collective journey.

Our lives as men have so often moved forward in isolation and loneliness, within the cruel walls men have erected between each other. We have all strained under the pressure of our merciless masculine arrangements. We learned early in life the danger of being vulnerable, in a world where tenderness and compassion barely exist.

But as men engaged now in the struggle to change our lives, we must nurture the art which our common beliefs and hopes give birth to. This art will feed us and sustain us in the uncertain days ahead. Any community which turns its back on the voices and visions of its artists stands in grave danger of losing its soul.

Our community of changing men is our treasure. For years we have worked to establish it. In truth, it is all we have. Our shared experience, and what is born of it, must be zealously tended and nurtured.

Therefore we are committed to bring into the light of day that which was never made to face critical eyes: the poetry, songs, writings, and feelings of our movement. The prospect is scary. We know all too well our limitations. We know even more that it must be done.