Book picks similar to
Sparks Fly by Kitty Tsui
lgbtqia
misc-queer
poetry
bdsm-fiction
while they sleep (under the bed is another country)
Raquel Salas Rivera - 2019
Written in dialogic fragments and intersped with prose poems reflecting on the lasting impact of colonial trauma, it is arranged around the two different discourses. The bed on which America sleeps, and which America has made, is built on the fear that the nations it has oppressed will rise up against it, a monstrous shadow in a child’s nightmare. Written in English, while they sleep points to a imperialist American identity: the dormant body of the text. Answering in Spanish, under the bed is another country is the footnote, the monster under the bed, the colony: Puerto Rico.
Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems
J.D. McClatchy - 2001
H. Auden, and James Merrill. Their poems of love are among the most perceptive, the most passionate, the wittiest, and the most moving we have. From Michelangelo’s “Love Misinterpreted” to Noël Coward’s “Mad About the Boy,” from May Swenson’s “Symmetrical Companion” to Muriel Rukeyser’s “Looking at Each Other,” these poems take on both desire and its higher power: love in all its tender or taunting variety.
Indigo
Ellen Bass - 2020
Whether her subject is oysters, high heels, a pork chop, a beloved dog, or a wife's return to health, Bass pulls us in with exquisite immediacy. Her lush and precisely observed descriptions allow us to feel the sheer primal pleasure of being alive in our own "succulent skin," the pleasure of the gifts of hunger, desire, touch. In this book, joy meets regret, devotion meets dependence, and most importantly, the poet so in love with life and living begins to look for the point where the price of aging overwhelms the rewards of staying alive. Bass is relentless in her advocacy for the little pleasures all around her. Her gaze is both expansive and hyperfocused, celebrating (and eulogizing) each gift as it is given and taken, while also taking stock of the larger arc. She draws the lines between generations, both remembering her parents' lives and deaths and watching her own children grow into the space that she will leave behind. Indigo shows us the beauty of this cycle, while also documenting the deeply human urge to resist change and hang on to the life we have, even as it attempts to slip away.
A Tale of A Thousand Stars
Bacteria - 2021
My only wish is to be by his side. Forever and always. It is the last sentence in the pastel diary that drives Thien on his journey to become a volunteer teacher on a hill to fulfill her last wish. In a world unbeknownst to him, he begins to recognize his self-worth and the true meaning of giving without expecting anything in return. There, he meets Captain Phupha, and their intimacy blossoms into a tie within the embrace of the beautiful mountain ranges in the northernmost part of Thailand. Thien's heart is filled with the memories of the tall officer to the brim until he becomes confused as to whom the feelings really belong to. Are they his feelings or are they someone else's? As their love stands against the test of time, will they make it through? Or perhaps they have to wish upon the thousand stars for the promise they've made to come true?
Autobiography of Red
Anne Carson - 1998
As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is."A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender." -- The New York Times Book Review"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday." -- The Village VoiceA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARNational book Critics Circle Award Finalist
The Thief's Journal
Jean Genet - 1949
Writing in the intensely lyrical prose style that is his trademark, the man, Jean Cocteau, dubbed France's "Black Prince of Letters" here reconstructs his early adult years - time he spent as a petty criminal and vagabond, traveling through Spain and Antwerp, occasionally border hopping across to the rest of Europe, always trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities.
some planet
jamie mortara - 2015
some planet is what it’s like to be a human. existing in one’s mind, in one’s body, in one’s world, in one’s galaxy, all tiny universes inside tiny universes all locked in fevered conversation. some planet is the coin in your pocket when you don't know how to choose. some planet is when everything is both itself and simultaneously else. jamie mortara is leading you through the woods by the hand, trying to get you home safe before sun goes down.
Funeral Diva
Pamela Sneed - 2020
. . . Its strength is in its abundance, its desire for language to stir body as well as mind.--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book ReviewShe is a writer for the future, in that she defies genre.--Hilton AlsThis notable achievement, traveling from youth to adulthood, is a harrowing account of how Sneed transforms violence and pain into an artist's life.--Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American LyricThere's an eerie sense of timeliness to this book, which features prose and poetry by the writer and teacher Pamela Sneed and is largely -- though not entirely -- about mourning Black gay men killed too soon by a deadly virus.--Tomi Obaro, BuzzfeedOH MY GOODNESS, it was amazing. I was in tears by the end. What starts off as beautiful memoir evolves into incredibly moving poetry, painful and sweet and lovely.--Marie Cloutier, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NYBalancing and mixing, with rhyme and reason, love and anger, good and bad, memory and the created present, all to tell the story of a life, a memoir unrestrained, devoid of artificial forms. Honest. Free.--Anjanette Delgado, New York Journal of BooksIn this collection of personal essays and poetry, acclaimed poet and performer Pamela Sneed details her coming of age in New York City during the late 1980s. Funeral Diva captures the impact of AIDS on Black Queer life, and highlights the enduring bonds between the living, the dying, and the dead. Sneed's poems not only converse with lovers past and present, but also with her literary forebears--like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde--whose aesthetic and thematic investments she renews for a contemporary American landscape.Offering critical focus on matters from police brutality to LGBTQ+ rights, Funeral Diva confronts today's most pressing issues with acerbic wit and audacity. The collection closes with Sneed's reflections on the two pandemics of her time, AIDS and COVID-19, and the disproportionate impact of each on African American communities.Riveting, personal, open-hearted, risky and wise.--Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict Is Not Abuse. . . a tour de force about the collision between a coalescing 1980s 'Black lesbian and gay literary and poetic movement' in New York and the onslaught of AIDS.--Donna Seaman, BooklistPamela Sneed's Funeral Diva is deft, defiant, and devastating.--Tommy Pico, author of FeedFuneral Diva is urgent and necessary reading to live by. This is writing at its finest. Keep this book close to your heart and soul.--Karen Finley, author of Shock TreatmentReminiscent of Audre Lorde's Zami, Pamela Sneed's memoir is, in itself, a healing balm, affirming in its truths and honesty. I cannot remember ever reading a book that illustrates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on our community more poignantly than Funeral Diva.--Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PatsyPamela Sneed takes enormous risks in this book. She tells the truth with fierce concentration and an abiding sense of purpose."--Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
Death and Fame: Last Poems, 1993-1997
Allen Ginsberg - 2000
Famous for energizing the Beat Generation literary movement upon his historic encounter with Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs in mid-century New York City, Ginsberg influenced several generations of writers, musicians, and poets. When he died on April 5, 1997, we lost one of the greatest figures of twentieth-century American literary and cultural history. This singular volume of final poems commemorated the anniversary of Ginsberg's death, and includes the verses he wrote in the years shortly before he died.
Love Beyond Body, Space & Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology
Hope NicholsonCleo Keahna - 2016
These stories range from a transgender woman trying an experimental transition medication to young lovers separated through decades and meeting far in their own future. These are stories of machines and magic, love, and self-love.This collection features prose stories by:Cherie Dimaline "The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy," "Red Rooms"Gwen Benaway "Ceremonies for the Dead"David Robertson "Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story," Tales From Big Spirit seriesRichard Van Camp "The Lesser Blessed," "Three Feathers"Mari Kurisato "Celia’s Song," "Bent Box"Nathan Adler "Wrist"Daniel Heath Justice "The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles"Darcie Little Badger "Nkásht íí, The Sea Under Texas"Cleo KeahnaAnd an introduction by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair "Manitowapow," with a foreword by Grace Dillon "Walking the Clouds".Edited by Hope Nicholson "Moonshot," "The Secret Loves of Geek Girls"
Freakboy
Kristin Elizabeth Clark - 2013
He’s a star wrestler, a video game aficionado, and a loving boyfriend to his seemingly perfect match, Vanessa. But on the inside, Brendan struggles to understand why his body feels so wrong—why he sometimes fantasizes having long hair, soft skin, and gentle curves. Is there even a name for guys like him? Guys who sometimes want to be girls? Or is Brendan just a freak?In Freakboy's razor-sharp verse, Kristin Clark folds three narratives into one powerful story: Brendan trying to understand his sexual identity, Vanessa fighting to keep her and Brendan’s relationship alive, and Angel struggling to confront her demons.
मेरी श्रेष्ठ कविताएँ
Harivansh Rai Bachchan - 2009
An anthology of some the best poems written by Harivansh Rai Bachchan,which have been selected specially for this anthology by himself.
Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel
Julian K. Jarboe - 2020
Bodily autonomy and transformation, the importance of negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and bad situations amidst the staggering and urgent question of how build and nurture meaning, love, and safety in a larger world/society that might not be "fixable."
Meditations in an Emergency
Frank O'Hara - 1957
O'Hara’s untimely death in 1966 at the age of forty was, in the words of fellow poet John Ashbery, "the biggest secret loss to American poetry since John Wheelwright was killed.” This collection is a reissue of a volume first published by Grove Press in 1957, and it demonstrates beautifully the flawless rhythm underlying O'Hara’s conviction that to write poetry, indeed to live, "you just go on your nerve.”
play dead
francine j. harris - 2016
This book chews with its open mouth full of the juiciest words, the most indigestible images. This book undoes me. . . . francine j. harris brilliantly ransacks the poet's toolkit, assembling art from buckets of disaster and shreds of hope. Nothing she lays her mind's eye on escapes. You, too, will be captured by her work."—Evie ShockleyLyrically raw and dangerously unapologetic, play dead challenges us to look at our cultivated selves as products of circumstance and attempts to piece together patterns amidst dissociative chaos. harris unearths a ruptured world dictated by violence—a place of deadly what ifs, where survival hangs by a thread. Getting by is carrying bruises and walking around with "half a skull."From "low visibility":I have light in my mouth. I hunger you. You wantwhat comes in drag. a black squirrel in a black tar lane,fresh from exhaust, hot and July's unearthed steam.You want to watch it run over. to study the sog. You want the stink of gristle buried in a muggy weather.I want the faulty mirage. a life of grass.we want the same thing. We want their deathsto break up the sun.francine j. harris is a 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellow whose first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery and PEN Open Book Award. Originally from Detroit, she is also Cave Canem fellow who has lived in several cities before returning to Michigan. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and currently teaches writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.