Gay pride poem
Nature Poems Written by LGBTQIA+ Poets to Interpret During Pride Month
The natural world teaches us many lessons if we’re willing to listen: patience, growth, change, and—perhaps most of all—the beauty in diversity.
For this reason, it’s no wonder poets with marginalized identities feel drawn to exploring natural themes in their writing. To celebrate pride month this June, we’re featuring a few of the many nature poems written by LGBTQIA+ poets.
Wild Geese
The iconic Mary Oliver, an openly gay poet as well as a Pulitzer Prize and National Manual Awards winner, passed away in 2019. Her legacy leaves behind a body of work that creatively and poignantly pulls inspiration from the natural planet. In “Wild Geese,” mighty themes of acceptance and belonging are evident:
You undertake not have to be good.
You do not include to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to grant the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the transparent pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies a
Poems & More for LGBTQ Pride Month
"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 gal inside it
“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman …
"The Man with Nighttime 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 Bl
LGBTQ Poetry
Explore the well-off tradition of gay, sapphic, bisexual, transgender, and homosexual poets and poetry by browsing a selection of poems & audio. For more essays, video, and ephemera, check out our Pride Month roundup.
Featured Poems
“Hair” by Francisco Aragón
who conceived that ravine
“Langston Blues” by Jericho Brown
O Blood of the River of songs ...
“The Distant Moon” by Rafael Campo
Admitted to the hospital again ...
“Where Is She ::: Koté Li Yé” by R. Erica Doyle
Long ago I met / a beautiful boy ...
“Things Haunt” by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
California is a desert and I am a female inside it ...
“Kudzu” by Saeed Jones
I won't be forgiven / for what I've made / of myself ...
“The Talking Assist of Miss Valentine Jones: Poem # one” by June Jordan
well I wanted to braid my hair ...
“Breathe. As in. (shadow)” by Rosamond S. King
Breathe / . As in what if ...
“The Black Unicorn” by Audre Lorde
The shadowy unicorn is greedy ...
“I Do” by Sjohnna McCray
Driving the highway from Atlanta to Phoenix ...
It’s been a lengthy time since I published much on this blog, which is interesting considering that I possess been writing for enjoyment and nourishment in my spare time probably more than ever. A lot of this is down to the creative/reflective/therapeutic writing studies I hold been pursuing. The course I am currently doing, a Practitioner Certificate in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (or CWTP, for those who like acronyms), has brought in on a scant occasions an senior Japanese friend of mine, the haiku. I always had a fondness for these little fragmentary moments, as adequately as their slightly longer sibling, the tanka.
The haiku traditionally comprises 3 lines and 17 syllables, in a 5-7-5 pattern (i.e. 5 syllables for line #1, 7 for line #2, and 5 again for line #3). The tanka builds on this foundation and adds another 2 lines, each containing 7 syllables (a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern), bringing it up to 31 syllables in total.
What I always loved about these poems was their fierce individuality in capturing a feeling or mood or moment in day – the language I might gravitate towards to experiment and pinpoint the essence of one of these will be so unusual to me that no one
Pride Poem
I was born into a poetry-loving family. My parents took turns reading aloud every evening, poems by the Brownings, Dickinson, Emerson, Frost, Longfellow, of course, and Poe (“Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore'”), Shakespeare and Tennyson, Whitman and Wordsworth.
My sister and I would recline tangled in blankets in our drafty house, vying to see the compact oval portraits in One Hundred and One Famous Poems, a narrow guide dressed in dusky navy with gilt lettering. Often, when it was her turn, Mom would choke up from beauty, and we’d have to complete the poem for her. But when it was Dad’s night, he always ended by closing the book and singing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.”
Perhaps this has something to complete with why, sixty years later, I was invited to read my Identity festival poem from the pulpit at the Cathedral of St. John the Holy, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the society, to kick off the “Four Choirs and a Cathedral” concert. It really was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill to ascend up into that awesome pulpit (about the size of a NYC apartment) and then perceive the Stonewall Chorale, NYC Gay Men’s Chorus, Empire Metropolis Men’s Choru