Speak its name
A collection of poems with queer themes and by queer poets to celebrate Pride this June.

To celebrate Pride and the publication of 100 Queer Poems, edited by Andrew McMillan and Mary Jean Chan, ‘Speak its name’ is a collection of contemporary and twentieth-century voices by queer poets and poems with queer themes through a transhistorical and archival lens. This collection celebrates the work of contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets and the voices that paved the way for them, irrespective of whether the identities of the twentieth century poets it includes was public knowledge, presumed, or speculated upon.
To read more about this collection and what inspired it, click here.
Photography credit: Photo by Robert V. Ruggiero on Unsplash.
Fox - Adrienne Rich
To A Stranger
Read by Kenneth Branagh
by Walt Whitman
To A Stranger - Walt Whitman - Read by Kenneth Branagh
A Spider - Colette Bryce
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Read by Simon Armitage
by Oscar Wilde
The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar Wilde - Read by Simon Armitage
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Read by Andrew Motion
by Wilfred Owen
Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen - Read by Andrew Motion
The Shield of Achilles - W. H. Auden
Surge 9 - Jay Bernard
The God Abandons Antony
Read by Jean Sprackland
by C. P. Cavafy
The God Abandons Antony - C. P. Cavafy - Read by Jean Sprackland
Josephine Baker finds herself - Patience Agbabi
by Jackie Kay
Her - Jackie Kay
You - Carol Ann Duffy
by Ankh Spice
praise poem - Andrew McMillan
To My Father / To My Future Son - Ocean Vuong
Sonnet 20: A woman’s face
Read by James Fenton
Sonnet 20: A woman’s face - William Shakespeare - Read by James Fenton
Flamingo Watching - Kay Ryan
Considering the Snail - Thom Gunn
Afterword, London 2020 - Keith Jarrett
Fame
Read by Jo Shapcott
Fame - Charlotte Mew - Read by Jo Shapcott
I, Too - Langston Hughes
Wild Nights
Read by Helen Mirren
Wild Nights - Emily Dickinson - Read by Helen Mirren
Just Walking Around - John Ashbery
Speaking in Tongues - Kei Miller
Pied Beauty
Read by Mimi Khalvati
Pied Beauty - Gerard Manley Hopkins - Read by Mimi Khalvati
by James McDermott