Poetry

What elevates 'teaching my mother how to give birth', what gives the poems their disturbing brilliance, is Warsan Shire's ability to give simple, beautiful eloquence to the veiled world where sensuality lives in the dominant narrative of Islam; reclaiming the more nuanced truths of earlier times - as in Tayeb Salih's work - and translating to the realm of lyric the work of the likes of Nawal El Saadawi. As Rumi said, "Love will find its way through all languages on its own"; in 'teaching my mother how to give birth', Warsan's début pamphlet, we witness the unearthing of a poet who finds her way through all preconceptions to strike the heart directly. Warsan Shire is a Kenyan-born Somali poet and writer who is based in London. Born in 1988, she is an artist and activist who uses her work to document narratives of journey and trauma. Warsan has read her work internationally, including recent readings in South Africa, Italy and Germany, and her poetry has been translated into Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself. If the moment doesn't pass, that's it―you're done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face. How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan's The Lover's Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. It is split into four chapters, with each chapter dealing with a different pain. Healing a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them—because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Titled after the poem that burned up on Tumblr and has inspired wedding vows, paintings, songs, YouTube videos, and even tattoos among its fans, Mouthful of Forevers brings the first substantial collection of this gifted young poet’s work to the public. Clementine von Radics writes of love, loss, and the uncertainties and beauties of life with a ravishing poetic voice and piercing bravura that speak directly not only to the sensibility of her generation, but to anyone who has ever been young.

S.T.A.R.G.A.Z.E.R is a collection of twelve individual poems about the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Each poem, accompanied by a zodiac sign, talks about sexuality, gender identity, love and finding yourself, all the while trying to show tolerance and respect above all.

“Do you want to set the world on fire tonight?” Sunblind is an anthology about the love of two boys on the verge of falling apart. Set in the modern world, the old legend of Icarus with a modern twist is told through the eyes of both lovers, and a collection of voicemails, texts, post-its and notes filled with unexpected twists and turns reminiscent of a leap of faith. The book features over 70 pieces and is divided into three parts which piece together the life of Icarus and Apollo, and their story which struggles for love, dependency, fear and more.

Praise For The First Book "I bought the "I Wrote This For You" book in actual, real-life paperback and it soothes my soul. Buy it if you can." - Laura Prudom (News Editor for Variety) "One of the most beautiful things I have ever read. Ever." - BT (Grammy Nominated Composer and Technologist) "This is me. This is you. This is us. This is every human being, past and present, old and young, of every ethnicity, race and faith. Our every complex human emotion translated into words. Someone knows and someone understands. This is the essence of what it truly means to be human." - Ethar El-Katatney (CNN African Journalist Of The Year, award-winning journalist, blogger and author) "The magnificent beauty of I Wrote This For You is quite simply the book is elegantly incomplete without you. No one else in the world can read it the way you do. No one." - Matthew E. May (The Elegant Solution, In Pursuit Of Elegance, The Shibumi Strategy) About the Book "I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you." The follow-up to the international #1 bestselling collection of prose and photography, I Wrote This For You And Only is the third book in the I Wrote This For You series and gathers together the very best entries in the project from 2011 to 2015. Started in 2007, I Wrote This For You is an internationally acclaimed exploration of hauntingly beautiful words, photography and emotion that's unique to each person that reads it.

"Mother, I'd Like" is a micro-chapbook written by Ruby Brunton for the Ghost City Press 2016 Summer Micro-Chap Series. The chapbook can be downloaded for free (or for a small donation) here: https://ghostcitypress.com/2016-summe... . 100% of donations go directly to the poet.

I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you. Everyone else who reads it, doesn’t get it. They may think they get it, but they don’t. This is the sign you’ve been looking for. You were meant to read these words.