Resources
From Category: Books
Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution
This extraordinary collection of personal essays by inmates of a maximum-security women's prison in Connecticut was edited by bestselling novelist Wally Lamb, who teaches a writing class there. Poignant, humorous, lively and unique, these narratives challenge us to reform a system that treats the authors as less than human.
Crazy Love
This poetry collection is enlivened by twin passions for social justice and the beauties of the Colorado landscape. In these poems, nature always provides a restorative place of peace and abundance when the wartime news becomes overwhelming. Uschuk is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Cutthroat.
Crime Against Nature
Politically urgent but never one-dimensional, in language that's always clear but never pedestrian, this groundbreaking book recounts how the author lost custody of her sons when she came out as a lesbian, then forged a beautifully honest relationship with them later in life. Connecting her loss to other forms of oppression and violence against women, she dares to dream of a world that "will not divide self from self, self from life." This collection was originally published in 1989 by Firebrand Press and won the 1989 Lamont Poetry Prize, a second-book award from the Academy of American Poets. A Midsummer Night's Press, in conjunction with the lesbian literary journal Sinister Wisdom, reissued it in 2013 in an expanded edition with historical notes and an author essay.
Dance and Disappear
Winner of the Juniper Prize. These poems radiate joy and spiritual insight.
Darker
The former US Poet Laureate needs no introduction, but this early collection (1970) deserves to be rediscovered. Other poets use images as metaphors; in "Darker", the images are the raw sense data of a surreal, often sinister new universe. "My neighbor marches in his room,/ wearing the sleek/ mask of a hawk with a large beak." Dare to enter the "phantasmagoria" (Howard Bloom's description) of the poet's mind.
Dawn Drums
By Robert Walton. Set in 1864, this historical novel tells the story of the bloodiest year of the American Civil War, brought to life with a chorus of voices both real and fictional. The cast of narrators includes President Lincoln, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and the women and escaped slaves who fought for the Union and cared for the wounded in field hospitals. This book would be a good addition to a history curriculum for young adults.
Degrees of Latitude
A woman's life unfolds in this finely crafted book-length poem, composed of found texts, fragments of conversation, and images recollected with the context-free vividness of a dream. Blossom takes on weighty subjects like divorce and alcoholism at a slant, breaking them apart into sentences separated by daring associative leaps, like the scattered impressions that a child might gather but be unable to process.
Deposition
Intense, sometimes cryptic verse explores the title's dual meanings of a witness statement and the removal of Christ from the cross. Ford's poetry occupies the territory between crucifixion and resurrection, a "dark night of the soul" that ruthlessly clears the ground for faith without making any cheery promises. Another must-read for poets working on spiritual themes.
Detour
This poetry collection explores the breaking apart and remaking of a woman's identity in the middle of her life, through a son's birth and a painful divorce. Subject matter that in a lesser poet's hands would be merely confessional here takes on a haiku-like precision and open-endedness, intimate yet unbounded by the confines of one person's experience. This feat is accomplished through White's use of the second-person voice and the way she narrates major events obliquely, through peripheral details described with quiet beauty.
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space
By Amanda Leduc. A hybrid of memoir and literary criticism, this important and engaging book challenges us, as writers, readers, and myth-makers, to resist the habitual misuse of disability as a symbol of tragedy or villainy. Canadian novelist Leduc interweaves her thesis with personal memories of growing up with cerebral palsy and interviews with modern disability activists.
Divining Bones
By Charlie Bondhus. This third collection from an award-winning poet stakes its territory in the liminal spaces between male and female, fairy-tale and horror, the archetypal struggle in the psyche and the mundane (but no less dangerous) conflicts of domestic life. The presiding deity of this shadow realm is Baba Yaga, the child-eating forest witch of Eastern European folklore, who guides the narrator to embrace traits rejected by mainstream gay culture. Aging, emasculation, and the grotesque lose their stigma and become sources of transgressive power.
Don Dreams and I Dream
By Leah Umansky. Inspired by the hit TV drama "Mad Men", this chapbook captures the show's lingering atmosphere of cigarette smoke, perfume, and unfulfilled dreams. Rather than recapping events from the series, the subject of these poems is the cultural ambience of the 1960s advertising agency and the America it created. Catchphrases, images, and snippets of dialogue are layered atop one another like the collage of peppy poster girls and noir silhouettes in the show’s opening credits. Umansky understands that "Mad Men" is fundamentally about how our identities are constructed by what we desire. And what we desire–such is the promise of advertising–links us to whom we desire.
Don’t Call Us Dead
By Danez Smith. "Every day is a funeral & a miracle" in this award-winning poet and performance artist's second collection, a defiant record of life as a black gay man under the twin shadows of police violence and HIV. The pervasive image of blood links these poems and the boys, alive and dead, for whom Smith speaks: blood as kinship, as bearer of the memory of dangerous intimacy, as evidence of murders that white America wants to wipe away. Smith's honors include a Lambda Literary Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
Earth Abides
A classic in science fiction's end-of-the-world genre. As much wisdom about philosophy and society as you'll find anywhere, all in a gripping novel that never flags.
Edinburgh
By Alexander Chee. In this poetic debut novel, a sexually abusive choir director forever alters the lives of a gay Korean-American youth and the friends he loves. The protagonist finds healing through artistic imagination, the survival stories of his refugee family, and taking responsibility for the dark side of his own desires.
Enlarged Hearts
This gorgeous collection of linked stories from Main Street Rag is comprised of variations on the theme of the Fat Girl. All the unnamed protagonists share this mythic epithet and all are employed at the Large & Luscious Large Women's Clothing Boutique in a prototypical shopping mall, but beyond that, they are individuals who gloriously resist social stereotyping and invisibility.
Enola Gay
Dazzling imagination of a post-apocalyptic world. Here is experimental verse that never becomes detached from its foundation in raw personal emotion and political outrage.
Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations
These magnificent, lavishly-printed works show the power and subtlety of wise use of design, color, typography, layouts, pictures and illustrations. Don't just make a book, make a treasure.
Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel
By Julian K. Jarboe. Queer magical realism unites the brilliantly inventive tales in this debut short story collection, in which the humor and verve of rebellious outsiders offer sparks of hope in the dystopian world we've made. A sassy queer witch seeks shelter from a manipulative priest in a town rapidly sinking beneath the waters of global warming. A young person's dysphoria is made literal when they menstruate sharp objects instead of blood. Kafka's "Metamorphosis" gets a new twist from a narrator who wants to transition into "a beautiful bug" despite authorities who insist that it's only a metaphor.
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
By Charles M. Blow. The New York Times op-ed columnist's gorgeously written and introspective memoir is a case study in overcoming patriarchy and healing from abuse. Brought up in rural Louisiana by a devoted but stern and overworked single mother and their extended family, young Charles yearned for more tenderness and attention than a boy was supposed to need. An older male cousin preyed on his isolation, giving him a new secret to add to his fears of being not-quite-straight in a culture where this was taboo. Channeling his need for connection into school achievement and community leadership, Blow found himself on both the giving and the receiving end of violent hyper-masculinity as a fraternity brother. In the end, he recognized that self-acceptance, not repression, was the best way to become an honorable man. Blow writes like a poet, in witty, image-rich, sensitive lines that flow like a mighty river.
First Rain
The poems in this chapbook are spare yet filled with longing, like the empty rooms in an Edward Hopper painting. Their narrators reach for the unsentimental wisdom to be found on the far side of divorce, aging, and other losses. This collection won the 2009 Pecan Grove Press National Chapbook Competition. High-quality book design enhances the appeal.
Floating Girl (Angel of War)
Luminous poems depict the spiritual tragedy of warfare through the idealized figure of the dead child, who amazingly deigns to comfort us with her beauty even as she indicts the ways we fall short of true humanity. The title poem in this prizewinning collection from Elixir Press took first prize in the 2003 Winning Writers War Poetry Contest. The book cover and design are also first-rate.
Fludd
A mysterious curate revives a dreary Catholic parish in 1950s Britain. This magical-realist novel combines the whimsy of Terry Pratchett with Anthony Trollope's affectionate satire of clerical life.
Flying Kites: A Story of the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strike
By the Stanford Graphic Novel Project. This fictionalized account of a real-life hunger strike to protest prison conditions exposes the horrors of solitary confinement and the inspiring struggles of families to stay connected to their incarcerated loved ones. The e-book is free to download for your computer or tablet.
Folding Ruler Star
Described by its author as "a value-neutral 'Paradise Lost'", this distinctive poetry collection explores the free-floating shame that arises from our simultaneous desires for connection and self-protection. Objects acquire human faces and vulnerabilities, while human faces are deconstructed into schematics ("five security zones"). The book is comprised of paired poems with the same title, enacting the imperfect mirroring of the self in intimacy with another. Runner-up for the 2006 Fence Modern Poets Prize.
Folly Bridge
This poetry chapbook from Finishing Line Press charms the senses with narrative poems that sing the particular music of locales ranging from Oxford to the Kansas prairie. One can hear the splash of the oars in the languid call-and-response of "Punt House, River Cherwell", or the off-key enthusiasm of the Midwestern mother in "Roxie Margaret Mouths the Words", who gives her children the gift she was denied, the belief that everyone deserves to find their voice. Alexander creates characters that will remain in readers' hearts.
For Girls (& Others)
Two centuries of advice for girls, from Victorian health texts to Internet chat rooms, get remixed and satirized in this playful poetry collection with an underlying serious question: how to secure a space of enjoyment and dignity when one's identity is continually subject to public judgment.
For Love of a Soldier
Heartfelt collection of interviews with military families who have become activists against the Iraq war. These brave parents, spouses and relatives of Iraq war veterans must contend with their loved ones' PTSD, injuries or death, while also facing accusations of being "unpatriotic" for speaking out against what they see as a senseless waste of life. Among those interviewed are the founders of Military Families Speak Out.
For Love of a Soldier
Heartfelt collection of interviews with military families who have become activists against the Iraq war. These brave parents, spouses and relatives of Iraq war veterans must contend with their loved ones' PTSD, injuries or death, while also facing accusations of being "unpatriotic" for speaking out against what they see as a senseless waste of life. Among those interviewed are the founders of Military Families Speak Out.
For Your Own Good
By Leah Horlick. This breathtaking lesbian-feminist poetry collection breaks the silence around intimate partner violence in same-sex relationships. Jewish tradition, nature spirituality, and archetypes from Tarot cards build a framework for healing. This book is valuable for its specificity about the dynamics of abusive lesbian partnerships, which may not fit our popular culture's image of domestic violence. Horlick shows how the closet and the invisibility of non-physical abuse make it difficult for these victims to name what is happening to them. The book's narrative arc is hopeful and empowering.
Forms of Gone
The poetic equivalent of a Chagall painting, this collection by a daughter of Holocaust survivors pays homage to the burdens and treasures of Jewish history. "I hoped to become one/ on whom nothing would be lost."
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
This book by a journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer inspired the hit movie and TV series. The Permian Panthers' season-long battle to reach the 1988 state high school football championships becomes a microcosm of racial and economic tensions in a West Texas town where the boom-and-bust of oil wealth has left many without a clear vision for their future.
From the Box Marked Some Are Missing: New & Selected Poems
This delightful first volume in Hobblebush Books' Granite State Poetry Series offers formal verse that is light-footed, elegant, and full of surprises. Many of Pratt's poems concern his work as an apple-grower in New Hampshire, describing the farming life with humor, wistfulness, and reverence. There are also poems of family life, European travel, meditations on aging and the mystery that lies beyond.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
This outstanding memoir, written as a graphic novel, intertwines the author's coming of age as a lesbian with her memories of her brilliant, enigmatic, repressed father, who died in an accident that she suspects was suicide. Drawing parallels to sources as diverse as Joyce, Colette, Proust, classical mythology, and The Wind in the Willows, she shows how their shared love of literature substituted for the intimacy they could never express in more personal terms. Bechdel is the author of the long-running "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip.
Gender Queer: A Memoir
By Maia Kobabe. Playful, emotionally vulnerable, and even cozy, this graphic narrative is a coming-of-age memoir centered on Kobabe's discovery of eir nonbinary and asexual identity. Gentle, accessible artwork with a sophisticated color palette gives the story an intimate feel, as if a friend or family member was sharing confidences with you. As well as being entertaining, this book is a good educational resource for teens and adult allies as well as queer folks looking to understand themselves.
Ghosts
By Raina Telgemeier. Children and adults alike will shed happy tears over this graphic novel about a Mexican-American family whose younger daughter has cystic fibrosis. In the days leading up to Día de los Muertos, the sick girl and her older sister cope with impending mortality through encounters with friendly spirits.
Girl Flying Kite
By Nancy Louise Lewis. The subjects of this visionary, God-haunted debut poetry collection could not be further from the innocent quotidian scene suggested by the title. In fact, the title itself is our first clue to the menace and mystery Lewis finds beneath the surface of daily life, as it refers to a child victim of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the shadow of her last playful moments forever burned into the wall. Other poems draw inspiration from the author's Appalachian childhood, stories of father-daughter incest, and enigmatic encounters with a divinity whose presence we can neither completely discount nor rely on. Lewis is most at home in the liminal space between belief and doubt, like the constantly eroding and re-forming shoreline of the ocean that appears in many of these works.
God Is an Englishman
Richly detailed, lively historical novel set in Victorian England, starring a visionary entrepreneur who founds a haulage firm. The careers of Adam Swann's nine children are a microcosm of British society at the turn of the century, while his wife Henrietta combines femininity and independence in a way that many modern women might envy. One of the best fictional portraits I've seen of a strong marriage and how it changes over time. This is the first book in a trilogy; the other books are Theirs Was the Kingdom and Give Us This Day.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
In this hilarious fantasy novel, an angel and a devil try to stave off the apocalypse because they enjoy life on earth too much. Along the way, the authors slip in some profound insights about the necessary balance between the light and the dark sides of human nature.
Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories
This website includes the full text of many of his stories in the 1872 English translation by H.P. Paull, plus links to biographical information and other resources.
Heaven
Sensual, joyous and profound poems make Christian ideas and images fresh again. Required reading for all poets seeking a modern idiom for the language of faith.
Help: The Original Human Dilemma
Personal and philosophical meditations on the paradoxes of help—why we offer it, why we need it, and what makes it effective (or not). A former Episcopal priest and English teacher, Keizer has a sparkling aphoristic prose style worthy of G.K. Chesterton, but also a winsome humility that prefers a balance of opposites rather than a neat solution. Everyone should read this book.
Her Body and Other Parties
By Carmen Maria Machado. This splendidly original collection of feminist horror and magical realist stories literalizes the metaphors for women's oppression, going to extremes that break through our numb familiarity with these everyday dangers. Women fade, fall apart, are haunted by cast-off parts of themselves. Yet intimacy and sensual pleasure remain alive like flowering weeds pushing through the cracked cement of the most murderous city.
Here, Bullet
Recently returned from the Iraq war, this former infantry team leader depicts the agony and adrenalin rush of combat, as well as the moments of unexpected stillness and beauty in a soldier's precarious life in a foreign land. This striking debut collection won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books.
Hey, Kiddo
By Jarrett Krosoczka. This graphic narrative memoir intertwines the author's tumultuous relationship with his heroin-addicted mother and his discovery of his vocation as a professional cartoonist. The result is a lovingly detailed scrapbook of working-class family life in Worcester, MA, with sepia-tinted artwork supplemented by original documents and childhood drawings. Krosoczka was raised by his maternal grandparents, who come across as well-rounded and beloved characters, often gruff and no stranger to alcohol indulgence, but with steady devotion and an unglamorous and patient work ethic that he learns to emulate. Krosoczka's popular graphic novels for kids include the Lunch Lady and Star Wars: Jedi Academy series.
House of McQueen
By Valerie Wallace. Winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize, this poetry collection inspired by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) captures the meticulousness and melancholy of his oeuvre, though lacking the messiness and horror that gave his work its raw energy. The standout quality of this book is Wallace's innovative use of erasure and recombination of found texts to produce beautifully coherent new poems, some of them in demanding forms like the sonnet sequence. Her collage aesthetic references McQueen's penchant for constructing clothes out of unlikely materials such as seashells, microscope slides, and dried flowers.
How the Boy Might See It
By Charlie Bondhus. Finding one's identity is just the beginning of the struggle, in this updated and expanded version of an award-winning gay poet's debut collection. With lyricism and an empathetic imagination, Bondhus claims a place for himself within multiple traditions, daring to juxtapose a comic tryst with a resurrected Walt Whitman, a disciple's erotic memories of Jesus, and the lament of a post-Edenic Adam. New work in this edition includes the poem suite "Diane Rehm Hosts Jesus Christ on NPR", narrated by a very human messiah who "would speak about what God shares with humanity...I mean loneliness".
How to Make a Living as a Poet
Successful slam poet offers creative ways to support a career as a full-time writer. Also includes advice about how to give good readings, write effective press releases, and other practical skills.
How to Paint a Dead Man
By Harry Bauld. With mordant wit and erudition, the poems in this chapbook dissect artistic masterpieces from Rembrandt to Basquiat, to analyze the nature of fame, genius, and mortality. Several pieces are from the perspective of cogs in the commercial art machine—docents, consumers, or anonymous assistants to the famous painter (who are actually doing most of the work). Others remix words from news stories, textbooks, and artists' monographs, as if to warn that no body of work is immune to being decomposed.
How to Survive a Summer
By Nick White. In this contemporary Southern Gothic novel, a disaffected young man must confront his memories of an "ex-gay conversion" camp he was forced to attend as a teen, when another former camper makes a horror movie based on a death that occurred there. The book parallels the structure of traumatic memory recovery, converging on the pivotal time period with scenes set before and after the protagonist's fateful summer. His Christian family members are drawn with depth and compassion, and the surprising redemptive ending feels earned.
