Books like Undersong by Audre Lorde

A powerful and poetic account of breast cancer survivor Audre Lorde's experience and transformation.

A powerful collection of poems by Audre Lorde that explores African American lesbian identity, social justice, and personal resilience.

Coal is one of the earliest collections of poems by a woman who, Adrienne Rich writes, "for the complexity of her vision, for her moral courage and the catalytic passion of her language, has already become, for many, an indispensable poet." Marilyn Hacker captures the essence of Lorde and her poetry: "Black, lesbian, mother, urban woman: none of Lorde's selves has ever silenced the others; the counterpoint among them is often the material of her strongest poems."

A powerful debut collection in which Phillip B. Williams uses precise, urban‑themed poems to confront racism, homophobia and the complexities of desire in African American gay lives.

A collection of interviews with the pioneering African‑American poet, feminist, lesbian, and civil‑rights activist Audre Lorde.

A comprehensive anthology of June Jordan’s poetry, spanning over six hundred pages of lyricism, elegiac verse, and vibrant vernacular, including unpublished “last poems” that showcase her powerful engagement with identity, activism, and human connection.

A vibrant collection of Judy Grahn’s poetry, blending newer verses with selections from her earlier works, embodying the spirit of social movements and celebrating love, community, earth, and spirit.

Fire to Fire compiles Mark Doty’s most celebrated poems alongside new work, reflecting on human mortality, fleeting beauty, desire, and art’s transformative power.

What the Body Told is the second book of poetry from Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, a gay Cuban American, and winner of the National Poetry Series 1993 Open Competition. Exploring the themes begun in his first book, The Other Man Was Me, Campo extends the search for identity into new realms of fantasy and physicality. He travels inwardly to the most intimate spaces of the imagination where sexuality and gender collide and where life crosses into death. Whether facing a frenetic hospital emergency room to assess a patient critically ill with AIDS, or breathing in the quiet of his mother’s closet, Campo proposes with these poems an alternative means of healing and exposes the extent to which words themselves may be the most vital working parts of our bodies. The secret truths in What the Body Told, as the title implies, are already within each of us; in these vivid and provocative poems, Rafael Campo gives them a voice. Lost in the Hospital It’s not that I don’t like the hospital. Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave. The smell of antiseptic cleansers. The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true. My friend, the one who’s dying, took me out To where the patients go to smoke, IV’s And oxygen tanks attached to them— A tiny patio for skeletons. We shared A cigaratte, which was delicious but Too brief. I held his hand; it felt Like someone’s keys. How beautiful it was, The sunlight pointing down at us, as if We were important, full of life, unbound. I wandered for a moment where his ribs Had made a space for me, and there, beside The thundering waterfall of is heart, I rubbed my eyes and thought “I’m lost.”

Duy Doan's debut poetry collection explores humor, reserve, and the fluidity of identity through the eyes of a Vietnamese‑American, winning the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ poetry.