100 Queer Poems

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Despite his tumultuous relationship with religion, the impact it has had on Norman and his writing is painted widely across his poetry. He decries its ability – its willingness – to abandon queer people, to make pariahs of them. A diverse and gratifying new anthology of LGBTQ+ verse... this is an abundantly rich and rewarding collection, capturing how queer poets and their work speak to one another across generations attitude The first thing he learned at school, as he watched the girls during break, was that there was a girl inside him. He believed that when he grew up his penis would expire and her breasts would sprout. In any case: this is a truly wonderful book. While not every individual poem worked for me, the collection as a whole offers something bold, expressive and kind of even … necessary? I am so happy it exists.

This was followed by one of the most intimate and emotionally sensitive debut novels one could ever read: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. He accepted that he was a mistake. His first suicide attempt occurred the day before he started middle school. Meanwhile Bernard’s poem Hiss came about because they were “thinking about all of the burned buildings [they] have seen or entered, how it feels to stand upright below an uncertain roof, how such buildings appear as both inside and outside, as both ruin and vitrine”. This book is a celebration of exuberant queer poetics, and it’s very special because of that Norman Erikson Pasaribu It also a wonderful pair of introductions from the editors—this would be the sort of thing I normally skip over but, in this case, they serve as a kind of mission statement for the collection (and the line right at the beginning from Andrew McMillan about the poems of Thom Gunn make him feel, for the first time, that “who I was might be worth of poetry, worth of literature” hit me hard and immediately in the feels). Specifically, the editors interrogate what a queer poem is—what it means to call something a queer poem—before reminding us that the collection is 100 Queer Poems, not 100 Poems about Queerness, a distinction that one that helped me guide through the collection as it moves thematically through various spaces of queerness, from ones that feel very rooted in selfhood (like adolescence, domesticity and relationships) to ones that look outwards, into the world and into the future (the last section explicitly being called Queer Futures). This gorgeously titled collection, separated into two halves, is an exploration of queer lives, loves, and families.Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan's luminous anthology, 100 Queer Poems, is a celebration of thrilling contemporary voices and visionary poets of the past. Featuring Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Ocean Vuong, Carol Ann Duffy, Kae Tempest and many more. Encompassing both the flowering of queer poetry over the past few decades and the poets who came before and broke new ground, 100 Queer Poems presents an electrifying range of writing from the twentieth century to the present day. His father punished him with beatings. One day he eavesdropped on his parents – his father was worried because according to him their firstborn son acted like a girl. He peered into the mirror, to the little girl inside. And he saw it was good. The awkward and rigid binaries of heterosexual relationships are examined through a piteous lens, and the secrets of frightened, closeted gay married men are exposed. Some poems are grounded in his life and experiences; others are incredibly, beautifully abstract. They communicate through tone and emotion and language, even if the theme or concept isn’t clear. Much of the poetry in Sergius Seeks Bacchus is freeform, unrestrained by rhyme and metre as, perhaps, the lives of the queer people of Indonesia should be allowed to be.

In a collection that passes across the scope of lives and relationships, The Human Body is a Hivealso moves through the spectrum of human emotion.Ocean Vuong is arguably one of the most famous, beloved, and impactful poetry writing today, especially within the queer community.

Andrew McMillan and Mary Jean Chan's luminous anthology, 100 Queer Poems, is a celebration of thrilling contemporary voices and visionary poets of the past.Queerness and religion, the way in which these two interact, wage war, and cause heartache when mixed — this is all felt with both deep sorrow and a flighty wit in this, one of the most important queer poetry collections ever written. There is a wider breadth to the wanderings of these poems, too, as they concern themselves with the broad strokes of love as it exists today. Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. He is the author of the poetry collection Tongues of Fire, which received the Laurel Prize and was shortlisted for many awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards and for the Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Polari Book Prize. Hewitt lectures at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2022, he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.

This was also not a book to read digitally, at least not for me. I love ebooks—I’m all for democratisation and accessibility of texts—but there is something about poetry that feels like it needs paper. Or I feel like I need to hold it in my hands. In You Better Be Lightning, you’ll find longer narrative poems that tell specific tales of experiences both personal and universal. Jay Bernard, whose first poetry collection Surge was based on the New Cross fire archives and won the Ted Hughes award, said 100 Queer Poems was “coming at a critical, contradictory juncture: widespread hatred and distrust of trans people alongside huge efforts at representation and inclusion; general acceptance of cis gay and bisexual people yet rising intolerance post-Brexit; an increasingly vocal and visible intersex population, yet few legal rights or protections for them”. Abundantly rich and rewarding...capturing how queer poets and their work speak to one another across generations' Attitude The poem asks a number of questions, says Bernard: “What has passed away and what will transpire? Can we allow for a radical inner transformation that appears ugly to us, or that might render us undesirable?”These are relatable experiences but the way that Jason digests and expels them gives them a new light, and a possible new way for you to understand them. Vuong’s second poetry collection, Time Is A Mother, was written after the death of his mother. It’s a collection about love, family, queerness, modern American life, and many other topics. Canadian poet Jason Purcell is the co-owner of Glass Bookshop, a person who lives and breathes language and literature. And here they put their own command over language to impeccable use. it’s safe to say i loved this poetry collection. i devoured it in a matter of hours (no matter how many poetry loyalists say not to do that, i simply could not stop myself). it is so beautifully collated and expressed, and is a real testament to random house/vintage, andrew mcmillan, mary jean chan, and the poets. it made me laugh, it made me cry, but most of all, it left me entirely speechless. Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan's luminous anthology, 100 Queer Poems, is a celebration of thrilling contemporary voices and visionary poets of the past. Featuring Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Ocean Vuong, Carol Ann Duffy, Kae Tempest and many more.