Buzzfeed Recommends Books by Queer Poets for National Poetry Month
Sarah Neilson suggests several collections of poetry written by queer poets in an article published at Buzzfeed. "April is National Poetry Month," Neilson begins, "which means now is a great time to check our bookshelves: How many queer poets are there? Queer poetry is blooming with talent right now — and these books are a great place to start." From there:
1. [Insert] Boy by Danez Smith (YesYes Books, 2014)
Smith made a huge mainstream name for themselves with 2018's Don't Call Us Dead, but their first collection deserves just as much attention. Already proving themselves a master of wordplay, rhythm, and truth-telling, Smith explores many of the same themes here as in Don’t Call Us Dead — bodies, mourning, lust, life, gender, joy, ancestors, and black lives. Smith comes from slam poetry, and their shrewd lines are evidence of this: They are sharp-edged and full of life. [Insert] Boywon the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Poetry Award, and the John C. Zacharis First Book Award, so if you haven’t been reading Danez Smith, join this firecracker of a bandwagon and be amazed. (And if you ever have a chance to see them perform live, do it.)
Read: "You're Dead, America" by Danez Smith
Get it from Amazon for $14.87, Barnes & Noble for $16, or find it at IndieBound or your local library.
2. Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Mawenzi House, 2015)
Another Lambda Literary Award winner, this collection from a legendary writer, activist, and self-described queer disabled femme of color is a must-read for everyone. Drawing bodies as maps — of diaspora, class, language, trauma, drive; of glitter and grit — Piepzna-Samarasinha writes bold, blunt, tight lines that are felt in the body as one reads. She also explores hunger — for food, sex, joy, and the divine — as well as the idea of rewriting maps and bodies. Piepzna-Samarasinha’s other works (including the memoir Dirty River and her recent release Care Work) are also pillars of the queer activist literary canon.
Get it from Amazon for $15.93, Barnes & Noble for $18.95, or find it at IndieBound or your local library.
3. Bestiary by Donika Kelly (Graywolf, 2016)
Winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award, this collection is a menagerie of the corporeal — an ark of memory and pain, of earthly objects and mythical creatures. With love poems to a Centaur, Mermaid, Pegasus, Werewolf, and more, Kelly brings the divine to the ground. With in-line literary references to The Bluest Eye and This Bridge Called My Back, stanzas are rooted in black queer women’s history; by using imagery of bodies inside other bodies, both in grotesque and beautiful ways, Kelly examines the past within the present, the animal in the human, the wild in the domestic, and vice versa.
Read: "Partial Hospitalization" by Donika Kelly
Get it from Amazon for $10.87, Barnes & Noble for $16, or find it at IndieBound or your local library.
Read more at Buzzfeed.