June is Pride Month, an annual celebration commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which took place in New York City and launched the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer rights movement in the United States. Pride Month is also a time to honor the many contributions of LGBTQ individuals. Explore the rich tradition of LGBTQ poets and poetry through a showcase of audio, video, poetry, and prose.
The Letter Q (Scholastic, 2012) is a collection of letters written by queer writers to their...
“Dear J.” by Kazim Ali
It should be a letter …
"Cento Between the Ending and the End" by Cameron Awkward-Rich
Sometimes you don't die…
“Love Poem” by Sophie Cabot Black
Which cannot be written tries anyway— …
“Virus” by Jericho Brown
Dubbed undetectable, I can't kill...
“A Queerification” by Regie Cabico
queer me …
"Unruly" by Jari Bradley
Hushed whispers in an undisclosed room...
"The School of Night & Hyphens" by Chen Chen
The sky tonight, so without aliens. The woods, very lacking …
“These Hands, If Not Gods” by Natalie Diaz
Haven’t they moved like rivers …
"Great Art" by Tim Dlugos
Underneath your skin, your heart …
“Where Is She ::: Koté Li Yé” by R. Erica Doyle
Long ago I met / a beautiful boy...
“The Hug” by Thom Gunn
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined …
"Aria” by Jenny Johnson
Tonight at a party we will say farewell …
"Gay Marriage Poem" by Jenny Johnson
We could promise to elope …
“The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.” by Donika Kelly
I am taken with the hot animal …
“Vows (for a gay wedding)” by Joseph O. Legaspi
What was unforeseen is now a bird orbiting this field …
"[To find a kiss of yours]" by Federico García Lorca
To find a kiss of yours / what would I give…
“Exclusively on Venus” by Trace Peterson
Roses are red / violets are transsexual …
“Twenty-One Love Poems [The Floating Poem, Unnumbered]” by Adrienne Rich
Whatever happens with us, your body …
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Browse more poems & audio from LGBTQ poets past and present.
Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time
This anthology collects nearly one hundred varied and distinct gay and lesbian voices representing various cultural backgrounds including Asian American, Native American, Jewish, Hispanic, and African Americans.
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics
Edited by TC Tolbert and Trace Peterson
This anthology gathers together a diverse range of fifty-five trans and genderqueer poets with varying aesthetics and backgrounds.
Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016
by Frank Bidart
This volume compiles Bidart’s 1990 collected, In the Western Night: 1965–1990 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), the four books he has published since, and sixty-odd pages of startling new verse.
"Hair" by Francisco Aragón
who conceived that ravine
"elegy for kari edwards" by Julian Talamantez Brolaski
damesirs of fishairs / princes reginae / I don't need this botheration …
"Langston Blues" by Jericho Brown
O Blood of the River of songs …
“The Distant Moon” by Rafael Campo
Admitted to the hospital again …
“Heartbeats” by Melvin Dixon
Work out. Ten laps …
“The Embrace” by Mark Doty
You weren’t well or really ill yet either …
"Things Haunt" by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
California is a desert and I am a woman inside it
“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman …
"The Man with Night Sweats" by Thom Gunn
I wake up cold, I who / Prospered
"In the Dream" by Jenny Johnson
I was alone in a dyke bar we'd traversed before
"Kudzu" by Saeed Jones
I won't be forgiven / for what I've made / of myself
“The Talking Back of Miss Valentine Jones: Poem # one” by June Jordan
well I wanted to braid my hair …
"The Black Unicorn" by Audre Lorde
The black unicorn is greedy
“Survival Guide” by Joy Ladin
No matter how old you are …
“My Lover Is a Woman” by Pat Parker
my lover is a woman …
"Abandonment Under the Walnut Tree" by D. A. Powell
Something seems to have gnawed that walnut leaf …
"The King is Dead, Long Live the King" by Julian Randall
Heaven is the certainty that you will be avenged
"Tonight No Poetry Will Serve" by Adrienne Rich
Saw you walking barefoot / taking a long look / at the new moon's eyelid …
"Elegy in Joy" by Muriel Rukeyser
We tell beginnings: for the flesh and the answer …
"Dear Melissa: [a curve billed thrasher]" by TC Tolbert
A curve billed thrasher / is cleaning it's beak on the ground …
June Jordan's 1978 postcard to Kathy Engel
Audre Lorde's 1971 reading flyer, front and back
A letter from Adrienne Rich to Betty Kray, the first Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets
A poster advertising a New York City reading in 1970 by June Jordan sponsored by the Academy of American Poets
Kazim Ali
Born to parents of Indian descent, Ali is the author of The Far Mosque and The Fortieth Day, among other collections.
Natalie Diaz
Born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, Diaz is the author of When My Brother Was an Aztec. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
Jan-Henry Gray
Author of Documents, chosen by D. A. Powell as the winner of 2018 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, Gray co-hosts Meanwhile, a zine-making and storytelling show in Chicago
Saeed Jones
Co-host of Buzzfeed's AM to DM, Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise, which Flavorwire called "perhaps the readiest, most painfully assured debut of the decade."
Federico García Lorca
Considered one of the most important Spanish poets and dramatists of the twentieth century, Lorca worked with composers, painters, and actors throughout his career. He is widely known for his work on "Theory and Play of the Duende"
Dawn Lundy Martin
In addition to receiving the 2019 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Martin is also the co-founder of the Third Wave Fund.
Rajiv Mohabir
Winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize for his book The Cowherd's Son, Mohabir also received the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books for The Taxidermist's Cut.
Frank O'Hara
A figure in both the literary and visual art worlds of the 1950s and 60s, O'Hara is associated with the New York School of poetry. His poems contain impromptu lyrics, witty banter, journalistic parodies, and pop culture references.
Pat Parker
Pat Parker was the author of Movement in Black, and actively involved in the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights movements on the West Coast.
Raquel Salas Rivera
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry, Rivera is the poet laureate of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
May Swenson
Born into a large Mormon family, May Swenson moved to New York's Greenwich Village as a young woman. Her poems often employ sensual images and erotic language.
Ocean Vuong
Author of the T. S. Eliot Prizewinning collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Vuong was born in Saigon, VIetnam, and immigrated to the United States at the age of two.
GLBTQ Archives
An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer literature and culture
Lambda Literary
A resource for LGBTQ book awards, reviews, author interviews, opinion, and literary news
ONE Archives
ONE Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world