As long-time readers of this section will know, I am not a poetry girl in the slightest. I find it confusing, frustrating and inaccessible to someone who can’t figure out how it’s meant to be read, let alone delve into its deeper meanings. So naturally, a poetry anthology was an odd choice for me to choose to read, but given it was one of the remaining books in the former LGBTQ+ Representative Committee’s Lending Library, it had to be tackled eventually.
And all I can say is, it wasn’t bad. 100 Queer Poems did have its fair share of confusing poetry (I think?) in there, but not as much as I tend to find – maybe practice does indeed make perfect! For the ones that I could get my head around, there are expertly crafted titles and beautiful writing that encapsulate the allure of the English language. Collected from a range of time periods and poets, both dead and alive, the collection presented in this anthology is wide and diverse, covering seven broad themes thoroughly, effectively, and with a variety of sub-topics and identities focused on in each.
However, many of the poem structures in this anthology were very inaccessible, with walls of unpunctuated text, extended or tenuous rhyming schemes, and metaphors that left me wondering what the poem was even trying to say, let alone being left up to interpretation. Each poet’s writing style is allowed to shine through, expressing themselves and their individuality, but this often acts as a barrier to understanding, particularly if you are not poetry-inclined yourself. Whilst an artful and varied collection, it is a difficult one if poetry is not your first love.
As well as this, the themes into which poems are organised rely on only a single interpretation of the words on the page, which given the highly individual nature many of these poems take, feels counterproductive. It is another preventative barrier to understanding the content of this anthology, as on multiple occasions I had determined my own interpretation, only to find this would be incongruent with the theme in which it sat.
Much of my experience of reading 100 Queer Poems consisted of unbridled confusion and struggling to understand how or why what I was reading was even a poem, let alone a queer one. But I am confident that most of these issues are due to me, rather than the collection itself, which has some beautiful storytelling and incredible poets contributing to it. Poetry experts may disagree, but as a lay reader, this book is a decent mix that is a good read if you’re prepared to skip some that aren’t for you!
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
100 Queer Poems (ISBN: 978-1-529-11532-1) was published in 2022. A copy is available to borrow from the LGBTQ+ Lending Library in the LGBTQ+ Lounge
