Passionate Hearts: The Poetry of Sexual Love
Compiled by: Wendy Maltz

To create this anthology of intimate and sexually explicit poems, Wendy Maltz blended pieces of acclaimed poetry, celebrated prose and classical erotica. The result is a collection of works that explore the joy of intimacy that is both sexual and emotional in a committed relationship. By including pieces that express the different levels of passion that evolve throughout the course of a relationship, Maltz provides poems about tender awakenings, passionate pleasures, poignant moments, deepening intimacy, and love aged to perfection. The writers featured include Neruda, Olds, Piercy, Cummings, Carver, Kinnel, Peacock, Teasdale, Tana, Laux, Soto, and more. In advising readers on how best to use this book, poet Molly Peacock says quite simply, "This is a book of passion. Take it to bed with you. Curl up with another passionate heart. . . . and uncover erotic truths."

My Lover Is a Woman: Contemporary Lesbian Love Poems
Complied by: Leslea Newman (Editor)

This anthology of contemporary lesbian love poems features the work of established and emerging writers exploring various aspects of same-sex love. In compiling this collection, Leslea Newman described the pieces chosen for inclusion, as poems that elicited a "spontaneous physical response" the first time she read them. As works that express tenderness, sorrow, joy, disappointment, surprise, loss, exhilaration, and fear, these poems induced smiles, sighs, tears, laughter, tension, and arousal. Common themes include: the rigors of long-term commitment, sensual pleasure, the pang of unrequited love, the thrill of new love, the devastation of loss, the headiness of wooing, the impact of illness, the deliciousness of forbidden love, the effects of aging, the Eros of femme-butch sexuality, the complications of interracial love, and the social taboo of lesbian passion. To develop these themes, many writers display their talent for creating vivid imagery, clever symbolism, and succulent food-body metaphors.

Gay Love Poetry
Complied by: Neil Powell (Editor)

Gay love poetry has been a component of literary culture for more than two thousand years. In this anthology, poets from the classical times thru the English Renaissance and into the 21st century, expound on the many aspects of gay life and love. Beginning with the works of Homer, Theocritus, Virgil, and other writers of antiquity, the collection roves to the Middle Ages offering pieces by Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Sidney and others. Eighteenth century writers include Pope,Wordsworth and Byron with the 19th century represented by Whitman, Wilde, Owen, Tennyson, and more. Modern verse by Foucault, Gunn, King, McClatchy, and others explore gay love as it is experienced today. While some works are overt in their presentation, others are more veiled by the gender-masking tactics some writers felt compelled to use to elude the censure of society. This collection is effusive, humorous, intoxicating, whimsical, honest, and abundantly emotional. As such, it is the best poetry resource currently available on gay love.