small collection of links for ldov
would encourage looking for these in local bookshops if you can, especially books by authors of colour
on butch/femme: compiled readings, compiled by i.m. epstein (collection of genres)
the persistent desire: a femme-butch reader, edited by joan nestle (collection of genres, register on archive.org or here is a pdf)
last train out of the city by ivan coyote (poem)
the only blak queer in the world by ellen van neervan (poem)
boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky kennedy and madeline gold (history, register on archive.org)
odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman (history)*
the vintage book of international lesbian fiction, edited by joan nestle (fiction, register on archive.org or here is an epub)*
women on women: an anthology of american lesbian short fiction, edited by joan nestle and naomi holoch (fiction, register on archive.org)*
stone butch blues by leslie feinberg (fiction, cw r*pe, assault, police brutality)
beebo brinker series by ann brannon (pulp fiction, this is all five books in one)
notes of a crocodile by qiu miaojin (fiction)*
the color purple by alice walker (fiction, cw incest, r*pe)
tipping the velvet by sarah waters (fiction)
oranges are not the only fruit by jeanette winterson (fiction)
zami by audre lorde (biomythography)*
s/he by minnie bruce pratt (memoir, register on archive.org)*
fun home by alison bechdel (graphic memoir)
epistemology of the closet by eve kosofsky sedgwick (lit theory)*
the T on chinese transmasculinity by jinghua qian (essay)
who says we don't talk about sex? by kitty tsui (essay, found in the persistent desire but this is my post so i'm adding it)
asterisk = things i haven't read but intend to
lmk if anything doesn't work i don't actually know how to use dropbox <3
what are ur fave poems of all-time?
hi 💌 here are some:
“Love After Love” by Derek Walcott
“Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde
“Mayakovsky” by Frank O'Hara
“Rain” by Roberto Bolaño
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
“Spring Torrents” by Sara Teasdale
“Tulips” by Sylvia Plath
“Summer Morning” by Mary Oliver
“You Are Tired (I Think)” by E. E. Cummings
“Emergency Management” by Camille Rankine
“Thanksgiving 2006” by Ocean Vuong
“Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Warning” by Jenny Joseph
“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” by E. E. Cummings
“Love Sorrow” by Mary Oliver
“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)” by Warsan Shire
“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken
“Pig” by Hieu Minh Nguyen
“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass
“Mad Girl's Love Song” by Sylvia Plath
“The Century’s Decline” by Wislawa Szymborska
“A Primer For The Small Weird Loves” by Richard Siken
“Unpainted Door” by Louise Glück
“Spring has come back again” by Rainer Maria Rilke
“Homesickness” by Marina Tsvetaeva
“Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver
“Poem for Haruko” by June Jordan
“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song” by Mary Oliver
“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles (under the cut bc i couldn't find it online)
“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles
(content warning: graphic description of sexual activity at the end of the poem. i added *** right before that part just in case.) I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. *** And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.