Book picks similar to
Colin Is Changing His Name by John Andrews
poetry
queer-lit
lgbt
poetry-please
This Blue: Poems
Maureen N. McLane - 2014
McLane’s stunning third poetry collection, This Blue. Here are songs for and of a new century, poems both archaic and wholly now. In the middle of life, stationed in our common “Terran Life,” the poet conjures urban pigeons, Adirondack mountains, Genoa, Andalucía, Belfast, Parma; here is a world sounded out, broken, possibly shareable, newly named: “Take it up Old Adam— / everyday the world exists / to be named.” This Blue is a searching and a singing—intricate, sexy, smart.
What If It's Us
Becky Albertalli - 2018
If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.But what if they can’t quite nail a first date . . . or a second first date . . . or a third?What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work . . . and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?But what if it is?
Heaven
Emerson Whitney - 2020
Whitney streaks this through with queer and gender theory, standing audaciously in the face of uncertainty, to ask: "if the 'feminine' thus far has only existed as a defective version of a masculine idea, then maybe there's something living, like between the gap in the sidewalk, that is actual femininity, accessible to all." Whitney stands in the gap, writes in the gap.Heaven functions much like a hand-dipped candle, lowered patiently into theory and memory--a caught manta rays hanging aloft a dock, a mother checking her teeth in the mirror above the stove--that, taken together, thicken into an astounding, expansive examination of what makes us up. For fans of Eileen Myles or Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, Whitney's Heaven introduces an important new public intellectual.
nîtisânak
Jas M. Morgan - 2018
Morgan’s nîtisânak is woven around grief over the loss of their mother. It also explores despair and healing through community and family, and being torn apart by the same. Using cyclical narrative techniques and drawing on Morgan’s Cree, Saulteaux, and Métis ancestral teachings, this work offers a compelling perspective on the connections that must be broken and the ones that heal.
Detransition, Baby
Torrey Peters - 2021
She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment
John Giorno - 2020
Poetry didn't pay the bills, so he worked on Wall Street, spending his nights at the happenings, underground movie premiers, art shows, and poetry readings that brought the city to life. An intense romantic relationship with Andy Warhol—not yet the global superstar he would soon become—exposed Giorno to even more of the downtown scene, but after starring in Warhol's first movie, Sleep, they drifted apart. Giorno soon found himself involved with Robert Rauschenberg and later Jasper Johns, both relationships fueling his creativity. He quickly became a renowned poet in his own right, working at the intersection of literature and technology, freely crossing genres and mediums alongside the likes of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin.Twenty-five years in the making, and completed shortly before Giorno's death in 2019, Great Demon Kings is the memoir of a singular cultural pioneer: an openly gay man at a time when many artists remained closeted and shunned gay subject matter, and a devout Buddhist whose faith acted as a rudder during a life of tremendous animation, one full of fantastic highs and frightening lows. Studded with appearances by nearly every it-boy and girl of the downtown scene (including a moving portrait of a decades-long friendship with Burroughs), this book offers a joyous, life-affirming, and sensational look at New York City during its creative peak, narrated in the unforgettable voice of one of its most singular characters.
Gold by the Inch: A Novel
Lawrence Chua - 1998
In a Bangkok drunk on the nation's financial miracle - and high on an assortment of other things - the narrator meets Thong, a young, beautiful male hustler who works at a nightclub. As his romantic obsession with Thong grows, the narrator tries to convince himself that it transcends its commercial nature, but he is quickly forced into a hard look at the connections between desire and exploitation, personal and national identity. Lawrence Chua vividly combines Southeast Asia's troubled history with evocations of its modern face - its polyglot culture, its colonial past, the cool futurism of its skyscrapers and its sex industry. Written in hard-bitten, dazzling prose, Gold by the Inch is a stunning debut.
The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser
Robin Blaser - 1993
The Holy Forest, now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing "Image-Nation" and "Truth Is Laughter" series, and new work from 1994 to 2004. Blaser's passion for world making draws inspiration from the major poets and philosophers of our time—from friends and peers such as Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, and Steve McCaffery to virtual companions in thought such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, among others. This comprehensive compilation of Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century will stand as the definitive collection of his unique and luminous poetic oeuvre.
The Music of Your Life: Stories
John Rowell - 2003
Compulsively readable and always accessible, each story takes the reader into the mind and heart of its central character, whether a young boy suffering from Lawrence Welk damage and teetering precariously on the edge of puberty ("The Music of Your Life") or a not-so-young-anymore man for whom fantasy and reality have become a terrifying blur and who finds himself slipping over the edge toward total meltdown ("Wildlife of Coastal Carolina"). Nostalgia plays a part in these stories as a somewhat jaded New York film critic looks back on his life and the movies that shaped him ("Spectators in Love"), and an aging flower-shop owner ruefully assesses the love he found and lost when, as an eighteen-year-old, he embarked on a Hollywood career that never soared but did include one particularly memorable appearance on the I Love Lucy television show ("Who Loves You?") These stories all create entire worlds within which the characters live and struggle to find their way. Funny, touching, serious, and tender, the tales within The Music of Your Life are sure to appeal to anyone who has ever known the awkwardness of being "different," and while life is often harsh for the stories' characters, the bold determination with which they persevere offers inspiration to all.
The Other Side of Paradise
Staceyann Chin - 2009
Staceyann's mother did not want her, and her father was not present. No one, except her grandmother, thought Staceyann would survive.It was her grandmother who nurtured and protected and provided for Staceyann and her older brother in the early years. But when the three were separated, Staceyann was thrust, alone, into an unfamiliar and dysfunctional home in Paradise, Jamaica. There, she faced far greater troubles than absent parents. So, armed with a fierce determination and uncommon intelligence, she discovered a way to break out of this harshly unforgiving world.Staceyann Chin, acclaimed and iconic performance artist, now brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a brave, lyrical, and fiercely candid memoir about growing up in Jamaica. She plumbs tender and unsettling memories as she writes about drifting from one home to the next, coming out as a lesbian, and finding the man she believes to be her father and ultimately her voice. Hers is an unforgettable story told with grace, humor, and courage.
Memorial
Bryan Washington - 2020
Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it. Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end. Memorial is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.
The Book of David
Anonymous - 2014
A riveting, first-person tale in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and Lucy in the Sky.The author of this fictional diary began writing for a class assignment, but soon it became much more to him. As the star player of his high school football team, he faces a lot of pressure and expectation. Not to mention the secret that he’s harboring inside. The secret that could change everything.And as David quickly learns, nothing stays secret forever.His innermost thoughts and feelings are chronicled in the diary he left behind.
The Odyssey + 7 Free Bonus works: The Iliad Of Homer, Paradise Lost, The Golden Ass, Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Colonus, Antigone, The Aeneid
Homer - 2015
It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. In this Book you will also find 7 Bonus works for your enjoymentThe complete interactive table of content includes:THE ODYSSEYBonus book: THE ILIAD OF HOMERMore free Bonuses PARADISE LOST-by John MiltonTHE GOLDEN ASS-by Lucius Apuleius "Africanus"PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES•OEDIPUS THE KING • OEDIPUS AT COLONUS • ANTIGONETHE AENEID-by VirgilAll in one book elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your Kindle device. Enjoy!
A Matter of Life and Sex
Oscar Moore - 1992
From the stirrings of his adolescent libido to his eventual death from AIDS, Oscar Moore's hero confronts his destiny with raw candour, shocking self-awareness, and frightening fatalism.
Instafamous
Marcus Herzig - 2017
Ben likes Noah back. No one must know. But somebody does ...
Between his depression and anxiety disorder and his secret relationship with popular jock Ben Hynes, seventeen-year-old Noah Simmons has already more than enough to deal with. But there is always room for deterioration.When an anonymous blackmailer threatens to publish a salacious video of them unless they comply with his demands, Noah and Ben are hard-pressed to figure out the lesser of two evils. Ben has a reputation to lose. Noah has one hardly worth fighting for, but he doesn't want to lose Ben. Neither of them wants to be an inadvertent teenage porn star, so how far are they willing to go to protect their secret?Get your copy of Instafamous now for a fresh and relevant look at the intricacies of social media, teenagers, and mental health.