10 LGBT Poems You Need To Read This Month

LGBT Poems

June is Pride month, a celebration for LGBTQIAP around the world for the progress we've made and a reminder for how far we still need to go. It shouldn't come as a surprise that there are plenty of extremely talented LGBT poets putting their heart and soul into their work. It's very reassuring to know more LGBT poems and poetry collections are being released than ever.

Poetry is an emotional form of writing and gives writers the chance to express themselves in a way prose doesn't easily allow. Those from disenfranchised groups like LGBTQIAP people, especially those that intersect with other minorities, have plenty to channel into poetry. We're just lucky enough to get the chance to read it.

We selected 10 fantastic LGBT poems you won't want to miss. Check them out, and let us know your favorite poem by an LGBT poem!

1. Rachel Wiley

Mixed Girl, White Mother

Mixed Girl, Black Father

Yes, really

Mixed Girl, White Mother's Hair

Black Father's Lips

patient while you pick and choose

what's exotic enough

sights thru tired jokes about how she only gets half of

Martin Luther King Day off work

White Mother's Guilt

Black Father's Survival

Survivor's Guilt

Passing

wonders if it's called passing because something dies inside each time

carries her blackness like Peter Pan's shadow shot down and

stitched desperately back to her heels

--excerpt from "Mixed Girl," Nothing is Okay

2. Morgan Robyn Collado

We survive

In the cracks of

The sidewalk

Growing up

out

of destruction

In the notes that leap

from the Jazz bands

Brass

In the homes

we rebuild

and the seasons

we weather

--excerpt from "A poem for New Orleans," Make Love to Rage

3. Mary Lambert

want you to see the pretty parts of me, even

angle my face to seem thinner in the dark

i am afraid

of my exposed naked, mostly my ugly--

this is my body

and i am terrified

of the things it can & cannot do

--excerpt from "Why I Slept With Makeup On For Five Years," Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert

4. Ocean Vuong

In the body, where everything has a price

I was a beggar. On my knees,

I watched, through the keyhole, not

the man showering, but the rain

falling through him: guitar strings snapping

over his globed shoulders.

He was singing, which is why

I remember it. His voice--

it filled me to the core

like a skeleton. Even my name

knelt down beside me, asking

to be spared.

--excerpt from "Threshold," Night Sky with Exit Wounds

5. Blythe Baird

Growing up, my mother taught me

that lipstick should be reserved

only for special occasions.

Now, I wear it all the time.

I am my own special occasion.

--from "Lipstick," If My Body Could Speak

6. Roberto F. Santiago

i was sent home today

because i had a pink eye

but they never sent me home

when i had a black eye

in the car daddy said

big boys don't cry

but i don't see one in the mirror

i wish mommy picked me up

mommy looks beautiful in her dress

i want to be just like her

but my teachers and daddy

and stupid sarah tell me i can't

i still want to anyways

--from "Florals," Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, Issue 1

7. Andrea Gibson

She might be your type.

But I'm your exact font.

I am outside your window.

Throw down your hair.

I mean the hair you pulled from the drain

when you were cleaning your tub.

I want everything you have ever tried to wash away.

--excerpt from "Emergency Contact," Pansy

8. Jericho Brown

Dubbed undetectable, I can't kill

The people you touch, and I can't

Blur your view

Of the pansies you've planted

Outside the window, meaning

I can't kill the pansies, but I want to.

--excerpt from "The Virus," The Tradition

9. Franny Choi

Leaves stained onto the sidewalk from yesterday's storm create graygreen watermarks on the

pavement, like the negatives of pressed flowers, or the ghost of a letterpress still whispering up

from the page. A sidewalk is a haunting thing.

--excerpt from "Notes on the Existence of Ghosts," Floating, Brilliant, Gone

10. Rosamund Taylor

I can't read the words

in your skull,

just the throb of your heat

against my thumb-bone

and how your eyes open

as the fin whale passes,

as the roof dissolves

over our heads.

--excerpt from "We Lose Our Edges"

Let's Keep the Conversation Going...

What are your favorite poems by LGBT poets?

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