The New Hadrians
Jordan Firstman, Omar Apollo, Zane Phillips, Jeremy Pope
The Subdivision | Merged Diptych | 2026
These are the New Hadrians.
Four men — Jordan Firstman, Omar Apollo, Zane Phillips, Jeremy Pope — stand where an emperor once stood, claiming what Hadrian claimed: love between men is not a secret to keep but a fact to declare. They live free, love free, marry free. No closet holds them.
Behind them, marching men still cross the frame in formation, disciplined and unmoved. The same forces that built closets are organizing again — rolling back the medications that keep gay men alive, working against gay marriage, trying to fit the door back onto the room these men just walked out of. They believe themselvesyy ascending. Two black swans stand for what nature already settled.
At the center of this new universe sits Walt Whitman. He was an aesthetic Hadrian of his time — bravery worthy of an emperor. He wrote what he could not say outright, and left the rest for men like these to say without disguise.
“A youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand.”
That’s the whole ask, then and now — someone to hold your hand in the open, in the light.
— Behan
Footer: Walt Whitman, “A Glimpse,” Leaves of Grass (Calamus).
