Tuesday, January 06, 2026

Best Poems of 2025

When I read a book of poems I keep a stack of placemarks handy. When a poem strikes me in the particular way that makes me want to return to it, I tuck in a placemark. If the poem continues to cling to me, I make it official. I hand copy the poem into a loose leaf binder. These are the poems I copied out in 2025.

John Grey ….. Danielle

Candace Pearson ….. My Brother Is Busy

Walt Whitman ….. “4. These I, singing in spring …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “11. When I heard at the close of day …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “23. This moment as I sit alone, yearning …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “29. One flitting glimipse …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “32. What think you I take my pen …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “43. O you whom I often and silently …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. “45. 1. Full of life, sweet-blooded …” from Calamus (1860)

Walt Whitman ….. Behold This Swarthy Face

Walt Whitman ….. A March in the Ranks, Hard-Prest …

Walt Whitman ….. There Was a Child Went Forth

Walt Whitman ….. Thought

Al Young ….. The Dancer

Mariano Zaro ….. Red Swimsuits

Monday, January 05, 2026

Titles Read in 2025

January

The Gay & Lesbian Review 

January/February 2025, v.32 n.1


Beforelight

Matthew Gellman


Rain Taxi 

v.29 n.2


Walt Whitman: a gay life

Gary Schmidgall


Works & Conversations

Richard Whittaker, editor

November 2024, n.43


Some Coffeehouse Poems 

Dale Jensen


February


Because Lack

a poetry chapbook by Alan Bern


It’s OK That You’re Not OK: meeting grief and loss in a culture that doesn’t understand

Megan Devine


The Mojave: a portrait of the definitive American desert

David Darlington


Golden Men: the power of gay midlife

Harold Kooden with Charles Flowers


Jazz — Jail and God: an impressionistic biography of Bob Kaufman

Mel Clay


The New York Review of Books

June 20, 2024, v.LXXL n.11


Plucked

poems by Miracle Thornton


Walt Whitman’s Songs of Male Intimacy and Love

edited by Betsy Erikkila


March


Voices in the Ocean: a journey into the wild and haunting world of dolphins

Susan Casey


Subject Matters

John Grey


The Gay & Lesbian Review

v.32 n.2


The Mobius Strip Club of Grief

Bianca Stone


Workin’ Stiff

a comics chapbook by Fred Noland


Sissajig and Other Surprises

Ruth Plumly Thompson


Gay Travels in the Muslim World

Michael T. Luongo, editor


Gay Heaven Is a Dance Floor But I Can’t Relax

Charles Theonia


The Routledge Global Haiku Reader

edited by James Shea and Grand Caldwell


April


Wild Chocolate: across the Americas in search of cacao’s soul

Rowan Jacobsen


Rattle

spring 2023, #82


Karma: my autobiography 

Boy George with Spencer Bright


Stay True: a memoir

Hua Hsu


The Sexual Outlaw: a documentary

John Rechy


The Visitors from Oz

L. Frank Baum, pictured by Dick Martin


Days with Walt Whitman

Edward Carpenter


Coexistence

Billy-Ray Belcourt


May


The Pearl and the Pumpkin

Paul West and W. W. Denslow

illustrated by W. W. Denslow


How Not to Kill Yourself: a portrait of the suicidal mind

Clancy Martin


Hat in Hand: a verse play

Dan Gellepes


Before the War: poems as they happened

Lawson Fusao Inada


Smahtguy: the life and times of Barney Frank

Eric Orner


Dinosaur Behavior: an illustrated guide

Michael J. Benton; illustrated by Bob Nicholls


Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman’s working class camerados

edited by Charley Shively


Legends from Camp

Lawson Fusao Inada


June-July


Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: the daring young woman who led France’s largest spy network against Hitler

Lynne Olson


Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: how doubting the bard became the biggest taboo in literature

Elizabeth Winkler


The Last Avant-garde: the making of the New York School of poets

David Lehman


What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in my life

Mark Doty


The Gay & Lesbian Review

May-June 2025, v.32 n.3


Mariposa 

Spring/Summer 2025, #52


You Can Only Yell at Me For One Thing at a Time: rules for couples

Patricia Marx and Roz Chast


Self-Mythology

Saba Keramati


Opposable Thumbs: how Siskel & Ebert changed movies forever

Matt Singer


It Rhymes with Takei

George Takei, writer; Harmony Becker, artists; adapated by Steven Scott and Justin Eisinger


People I’ve Met from the Internet

Stephen Van Dyck


Reading Judas: the gospel of Judas and the shaping of Christianity

Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King


A New Resonance: emerging voices in English-language haiku

edited by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts


The Poetry of Black America: anthology of the 20th century

edited by Arnold Adeff


August


Out Our Way: gay & lesbian life in the country

Michael Riordan


A Beginner’s Guide of Japan: observations and provocations

Pico Iyer


On Whitman

C. K. Williams


FIRE!!: the Zora Neale Hurston story

Peter Bagge


The Sun

February 2020, issue 530

[found in Kent’s bag]


September


Branches: a graphic memoir

Mike Rossi


Wide Awake: poets of Los Angeles and beyond

edited by Suzanne Lummis


Tell It Slant

John Yau


Worshipping Walt: the Whitman disciples

Michael Robertson


Last Rights

Marvin K. White


Foglifter

2024, v.9 n.2


Look

Salmaz Sharif


The Best American Travel Writing 2019

Alexandra Fuller, guest editor; Jason Wilson, series editor


The Story of ABBA; melancholy undercover

Jan Gradvall, translated by Sarah Clyne Sundberg


October


Ghetto Sunshine & Other Poems, 1997-2023

Jonathan Hayes


The Thinking Heart: essays on Israel and Palestine

David Grossman


The Gay & Lesbian Review

September-October 2025, v.32 n.5


Calamus: male homosexuality in twentieth century literature, an international anthology

edited by David Galloway and Christian Sabisch


When the Band Played On: the life of Randy Shilts, America’s trailblazing gay journalist

Michael G. Lee


Pillars of Creation: how the James Webb telescope unlocked the secrets of the cosmos

Richard Panek


November


Spent: a comic novel

Alison Bechdel


Cartographic Failure

Jo Podvin


Neither Black Nor White: slavery and race relations in Brazil and the United States

Carl N. Degler


Night of the Living Dead: behind the scenes of the most terrifying zombie movie ever

Joe Kane


The Gay & Lesbian Review

November-December 2025, v.32 n.6


December


King-Cat Comics and Stories

2025, #84

John Porcellino


The Musical Brain and Other Stories

Cesar Aira, translated by Chris Andrews


Lieutenant Dangerous: a Vietnam War memoir

Jeff Danziger


A City on Mars: can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith


Cherry Tree

February 2022, issue 8


Roxy Music’s Avalon: a 33 1/3 book

Simon Morrison


Poet Wrangler: droll poems

Marvin R. Hiemstra


Gender Queer: a memoir

Maia Kobabe


Woman in the Dark

Dashiell Hammett


Neither Here Nor There: travels in Europe 

Bill Bryson


Mariposa

Autumn/Winter 2025, #53


The Great Pretender and the Despicable Dog: poems and commentary

Mel C. Thompson


Ocean of Clouds

Garrett Hongo


Israel/Palestine and the Queer International 

Sarah Schulman