13 Poetry Books By LGBTQIA+ Writers To Add To Your List This Pride Month

Anthologies, classics and contemporary poetry – everything gay you should be reading this month and always! 🌈

1. The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal

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In a first, this brilliant anthology brings together contemporary queer poetry from South Asia and the diaspora in one gut-wrenching and breath-taking collection. The collection includes poems about love, loneliness, intimacy, caste, family and activism in several languages across several continents.

Get it here for ₹353.

2. The Cowherd's Son by Rajiv Mohabir

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In this collection of poems, Rajiv Mohabir explores a distressed familial history through his queer and mixed-caste identity in the American society. His poetry is his personal truth of always being an outlier and his experiences with racism, homophobia, violence and xenophobia.

Get it here for ₹1,282.

3. Felicity by Mary Oliver

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Joy is a defining feature of Mary Oliver's poetry. In Felicity too, she writes about the wonders of human connection and the thrill of being alive in this beautiful world.

Get it here for ₹777.

4. If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar

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This gripping collection of poems is a mediation of identity, displacement and loss as Asghar tries to define and assert her place as a queer brown woman in the confines of white America.

Get it here for ₹251.

5. [insert] boy by Danez Smith

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In this book, Smith writes about their complex relationship with different kinds of violence from domestic abuse to homophobia and racism. A journey of healing unfolds as the book progresses, with a special focus on the body as religion.

Get it here for ₹2,414.

6. Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen

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Nguyen's poetry is an escape plan – the story of a queer Vietnamese American body navigating family, trauma, race and sexuality. The book is both about loneliness and allowing your heart to hope.

Get it here ₹1,282.

7. Lord of The Butterflies by Andrea Gibson

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Through the treasure chest of imagery that is Gibson's poetry, they offer a nuanced perspective of gender, love, loss, and family. It is both hard-hitting and tender.

Get it here for ₹1,105.

8. Crush by Richard Siken

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Siken's most well-known work yet, Crush is a story about a story. It is gut-twisting, tangible and so deeply visceral that it puts you right in Siken's imagined world.

Get it here for ₹1,272.

9. When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

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This powerful but still tender debut poetry collection from Chen Chen mediates love, strained familial relationships and necessary goodbyes from a queer, Asian-American and immigrant lens.

Get it here for ₹921.

10. Water I Won't Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli

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Water I Won't Touch is a self-portrait in the inspection of trans people living in unsafe and hostile environments. Candrilli writes of violence and moments of quietness, eventually imagining a tender and joyful queer future.

Get it here for ₹1,235.

11. The Dogs I Have Kissed by Trista Mateer

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In this collection, Mateer weaves religious imagery into heartache in an exploration of love, loss and sexuality. These poems are heart-breaking and still strangely hopeful.

Get it here for ₹1,327.

12. Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert

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If Mary Lambert's 'She Keeps Me Warm' waters the garden of your heart, this book is for you. It is brutally honest, raw and uplifting – like her lyrics – and explores the lows of sexual assault, mental illness and body acceptance.

Get it here for ₹1,180.

13. i am tired of being a dandelion by Zane Frederick

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This collection of poems is a robust dose of hope. From fortune cookies to shooting stars, and from 11:11s to blowing dandelions - Frederick captures how our lives are filled with hoping, falling and hoping again anyway.

Get it here for ₹1,164.