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Don't Call Us Dead
Danez Smith - 2017
Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.
Afterlife
Melissa Jennings - 2017
Afterlife is a journey from the darkness to the light again, and again, and again.This poetry collection discusses depression, anxiety, trauma flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, death, self-harm, suicidal ideations, strong language.Please practice self-care while reading this poetry collection.Please see appendix at the end of the collection for detailed page number content warnings.Also available for download on Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/hYbl
Give Me a God I Can Relate to
Blythe Baird - 2015
In 2014, she represented Chicago as the youngest competitor at the National Poetry Slam. Her work has been published or featured by The Huffington Post, Write Bloody, EverydayFeminism, Button Poetry, Chicago Literati, Banango Street, and Wicked Banshee, among others.
All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages
Saundra MitchellKate Scelsa - 2018
Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.StoriesRoja - Anna-Marie McLemoreThe Sweet Trade - Natalie C. ParkerAnd They Don`t Kiss at the End - Nilah MagruderBurnt Umber - Mackenzi LeeThe Dresser & the Chambermaid - Robin TalleyNew Year - Malinda LoMolly`s Lips - Dahlia AdlerThe Coven - Kate ScelsaEvery Shade of Red - Elliot WakeWillows - Scott TraceyThe Girl with the Blue Lantern - Tess SharpeThe Secret Life of a Teenage Boy - Alex SanchezWalking After Midnight - Kody KeplingerThe End of the World as We Know It - Sara FarizanThree Witches - Tessa GrattonThe Inferno & the Butterfly - Shaun David HutchinsonHealing Rosa - Tehlor Kay Mejia
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
Chen Chen - 2017
Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one’s own path in identity, life, and love.In the HospitalMy mother was in the hospital & everyone wanted to be my friend.But I was busy making a list: good dog, bad citizen, shortskeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday.My mother was in the hospital & no one wanted to be her friend.Everyone wanted to be soft cooing sympathies. Very reasonablepigeons. No one had the time & our solution to itwas to buy shinier watches. We were enamored withwhat our wrists could declare. My mother was in the hospital& I didn’t want to be her friend. Typical son. Tall latte, short tale,bad plot, great wifi in the atypical café. My mother was in the hospital& she didn’t want to be her friend. She wanted to be the familygrocery list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu. She didn’t trust my fatherto be it. You always forget something, she said, even whenI do the list for you. Even then.
Black Queer Hoe
Britteney Black Rose Kapri - 2018
In this powerful debut, Britteney Black Rose Kapri lends her unmistakable voice to fraught questions of identity, sexuality, reclamation, and power, in a world that refuses Black Queer women permission to define their own lives and boundaries.
Soft in the Middle
Shelby Eileen - 2017
"there are so many words I've left unsaidso instead of going another year or five or tenin brutal, crushing silencedon't waste this opportunitydon't be scared when the full weight of my hearttests the strength of your handsI'm trusting you with something I barely trust myself withthis knowingthis tellingthis momentous uprootingI'm hereI amI am right here in these words"A debut poetry collection about love, heartbreak, body image, how absolutely breathtaking girls are, flower blooms and starlight.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel - 2006
It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.
Inheritance
Taylor Johnson - 2020
Influenced by everyday moments of Washington, DC living, the poems live outside of the outside and beyond the language of categorical difference, inviting anyone listening to listen a bit closer. Inheritance is about the self’s struggle with definition and assumption.
Life of the Party
Olivia Gatwood - 2019
In Life of the Party, she weaves together her own coming of age with an investigation into our culture's romanticization of violence against women. In precise, searing language—at times blistering and riotous, at times soulful and exuberant—she explores the boundary between what is real and what is imagined in a life saturated with fear. How does one grow from a girl to a woman in a world wracked by violence? Where is the line between perpetrator and victim? What is the meaning of bravery? Visceral and haunting, this multifaceted collection illustrates that what happens to our bodies makes us who we are.
Our Wives Under the Sea
Julia ArmfieldJulia Armfield
It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.
A Portable Shelter
Kirsty Logan - 2015
They spend their time telling stories to the unborn baby, trying to pass on the lessons they've learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons. But each must keep their storytelling a secret from the other, as they've agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window. As their tales build and grow along with their child, Liska and Ruth realise that the truth lives in their stories, and they cannot hide from one another. A Portable Shelter is a beautifully produced collection of elegant, haunting short stories from one of Britain's most exciting new talents. Each story is accompanied by an illustration by award-winning artist Liz Myhill. Produced with the assistance of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship.
Bright Dead Things
Ada Limon - 2015
Limón has often been a poet who wears her heart on her sleeve, but in these extraordinary poems that heart becomes a “huge beating genius machine” striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. “I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,” the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, and Mark Doty, Limón’s work is consistently generous and accessible—though every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt, and lived.
A Place Called No Homeland
Kai Cheng Thom - 2017
In these fierce yet tender narrative poems, Thom draws from both memory and mythology to create new maps of gender, race, sexuality, and violence. Descended from the traditions of oral storytelling, spoken word, and queer punk, Thom's debut collection is evocative and unforgettable.Kai Cheng Thom is a trans writer and performance artist whose work has been published in Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Asian American Literary Review, and xoJane. She writes regularly for Everyday Feminism.