As she delves into queerness, feminism, fatness, dating, and race, Wiley molds these topics into a punching critique of culture and a celebration of self. A fat positive activist, Wiley's work soars and challenges the bounds of bodies and hearts, and the ways we carry them.

    The design of this anthology is inspired by the structure of a sonnet: 14 Poems for 14 Themes Love; Parting and Sorrow; Inspiration; Mystery and Enigmas; Humour and Curiosities; Rapture; A Door Opens, A Door Closes; Memory; Tales and Songs; Nature; Cities; Solitude; Contemplation; and Animals. There are poems for every mood and occasion, and alongside the more famous works, are some lesser known gems of English poetry.Included are masterpieces by Shakespeare, Dickinson, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Yeats, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Christina Rossetti, and many other outstanding poets. Please view the preview of this book for a full listing.At Elsinore Books we pride ourselves on creating beautiful Kindle Books, and devote great attention to formatting, and ease of navigation. This book contains a cleanly-styled contents page that permits easy movement between poems. You can return at any time to the contents page by clicking on the title of each poem.The Best of Poetry Series:Volume 1: The Best of Poetry: Thoughts that Breathe and Words that BurnVolume 2: The Best of Poetry: Shakespeare, Muse of Fire Foreword Anthologies of English verse are as abundant as mushrooms after rain. So why create another?Our defence amounts to this: the kind of anthology that we wanted to own did not exist – a collection in which the poems were as carefully arranged as selected; where Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” could ignite the beauty of Hart Crane’s “Brooklyn Bridge”; where the enigmas of Browning’s “Meeting at Night”, and Hardy’s “Once at Swanage” might unravel each other; and the doubts besetting Anne Gregory in Yeats’s poem, find answers in Thomas Moore’s “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms”. In this collection, we have tried to place poems together that will strike fire off one another, and bring new light to familiar lines. We decided to structure the anthology as a sort of sonnet sequence, with fourteen poems for fourteen themes. A two-poem prologue and epilogue bring the collection to exactly two-hundred poems. In selecting which poems to include, our aim was to present the best-loved poems in the English language alongside some less commonly anthologized masterpieces. Committed as we were to a definite fourteen by fourteen structure, there were of course, many wonderful poems that we were unable to include. Shorter, lyrical pieces have generally been favoured over the longer canonical works of English poetry. Each theme in this anthology is introduced by a famous definition of poetry. Taken together, these definitions give some idea of the beauty, enchantment, and richness that poetry can offer. But it is in the poems themselves that the real treasure is to be found. We hope you will enjoy reading them.Rudolph Amsel and Teresa Keyne

    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.

    But when a national nonprofit labels Big Burr "the most homophobic town in the US" and sends in a task force of queer volunteers as an experiment-they'll live and work in the community for two years in an attempt to broaden hearts and minds-no one is truly prepared for what will ensue. Furious at being uprooted from her life in Los Angeles and desperate to fit in at her new high school, Avery fears that it's only a matter of time before her "gay crusader" mom outs her. Still grieving the death of her son, Linda welcomes the arrivals, who know mercifully little about her past. And for Christine, the newcomers are not only a threat to the comforting rhythms of Big Burr life, but a call to action. As tensions roil the town, cratering relationships and forcing closely guarded secrets into the light, everyone must consider what it really means to belong. Told with warmth and wit, Under the Rainbow is a poignant, hopeful articulation of our complicated humanity that reminds us we are more alike than we'd like to admit.

    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.

    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?

    Now that his ship has been decommissioned at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he has nothing to do but accept the invitation of one of his fellow naval officers to convalesce for the summer at a remote country estate in Yorkshire. Septimus would do anything to get back to sea……until a pair of blue eyes and a mischievous smile tempt him to forget everything, including discretion.Adam Seymour has had to fight for everything he has, from the scholarship that allowed him to attend university to the right to be himself. Now, as tutor to the Duke of Malton’s precocious children, he has a comfortable life in a grand country estate far away from ridicule. His goal of starting a school for underprivileged children once his noble charges outgrow his tutelage seems well within reach……until temptation arrives at Wodehouse Abbey in the form of handsome, older, irresistible Septimus.It doesn’t matter how hard Septimus fights his feelings for Adam, the two men can’t seem to stay away from each other. But when Septimus is offered the chance of a lifetime in the form of the ship he’s always wanted to command, he will have to choose between the possibility of lifelong love and the dream that is finally within his reach.PLEASE BE ADVISED: Steam Level - Smokin' hot! This includes explicit scenes between male lovers, so if that isn't what you want to read, please feel free to pass on this book.

    Portrait is interested in the immediacy of language; in girlhood as wolfhood; in the cartography of illness; in fractures through the dark; in bodies, human & water alike. Luminous, tender, & unflinching, Portrait cuts straight to the marrow. To all those whose bodies have been more bruise than human—who feel so loudly the sky turns black in fear—this book is for you.Finalist, 2018 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book PrizeFinalist, 2018 Broken River Prize

    Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she’s going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor’s daughter. Audre’s grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won’t lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. “America have dey spirits too, believe me,” she tells Audre.Minneapolis. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels–about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that’s plagued her all summer. Mabel’s reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner. Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it’s Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.Junauda Petrus’s debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

    Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.

    Observing the crisis of human appetite through the lenses of psychology and science fiction, she's disquieted at a world "ruled by a bi-polar father-god, unconscious, suicidal."The personal meets the collective in these poems: insane rants transform into contemporary oracular speech; a child who once hoarded candy grows into an adult who consumes a planet. Mutation, social media, eco-collapse, a dream of a survivable End Times: no less than the future of the body is at stake, bodies corporeal and political, ecological and spiritual. Was that the soul, wishingwe would invent the bodyout of existence,so many of us nowenthralled by doom...Dana Levin has published three books of poetry, Wedding Day (Copper Canyon), Sky Burial (Copper Canyon), and her first book, In the Surgical Theatre, won the APR/Honickman Award. A teacher of poetry for over twenty years, Levin splits her time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Maryville University in St. Louis, where she serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence.

    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

    Any form of heartbreak is one of the worst things one can encounter. Some say heartbreak is inevitable whereas some may disagree. However, almost every individual will probably experience some sort of heartbreak throughout their lives.We all have our own ways of healing but throughout this book, I have written in such a way that hopefully, most people can relate; the pain is printed- in black and white (literally!)I hope you can relate to my words- I tried to keep the poetry as simplistic as possible- as described by some readers, 'the words speak for themselves.'I hope my words have a didactic element- which not only teach but remind you that you are not alone.I hope you enjoy 'Good morning to Goodnight.'Lots of love, Eleni S Kau

    She holds up the Indigenous trans body as a site of struggle, liberation, and beauty. A confessional poet, Benaway narrates her sexual and romantic intimacies with partners as well as her work to navigate the daily burden of transphobia and violence. She examines the intersections of Indigenous and trans experience through autobiographical poems and continues to speak to the legacy of abuse, violence, and colonial erasure that defines Canada. Her sparse lines, interwoven with English and Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), illustrate the wonder and power of Indigenous trans womanhood in motion. Holy Wild is not an easy book, as Benaway refuses to give any simple answers, but it is a profoundly vibrant and beautiful work filled with a transcendent grace.Praise for Holy Wild:"This is a heart wrenching, thought provoking, honest, and graceful walkthrough of trans realities both on the homeland and in urban settings." —Joshua Whitehead, author of Jonny Appleseed, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Full-Metal Indigiqueer"As the poet says, "they want one thing and I am many." This book is many things, and we are grateful." —Katherena Vermette, author of the award-winning novel The Break"Benaway conjures trans life in a place that is both prior to and in excess of the violence that mires it. It is the emotional infrastructure for something like freedom. Let Benaway lead you there." —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of This Wound is a World

    She is so tired of being sick and alone.Angel Ruiz is a loner with a scarred heart that began with homophobic parents years ago.When Gina meets Angel at her friends’ New Year’s Eve party she feels an instant bond. She sees Angel’s damaged heart and wonders if it is as weary as hers?And then she has an idea.All Angel has to do is say yes.