Queer Poets Society

One day, Avery Selk was working at their local bookstore when Will Tosh, the head researcher of the Shakespeare Globe and author of Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, moseyed on in. Naturally they had to get their hands on a copy (a signed one at that!). In today’s episode, Mars Tarassenko and Avery Selk explore the nature of homosexuality along with the metatheories of homosexuality within Shakespeare’...

Ever feel like you're living in the shadow of a thousand-year-old statue? In today’s episode, Mars Tarassenko sits down with Eleftheria Papanikolaou to talk about Greek queer identity, tradition, and the weight of legacy. We lay the groundwork for a bigger conversation on Greek queer poetry—digging into how Ancient Greece still shapes the present, how national identity is built around the past, and what it means to navigate all tha...

No voice is unwanted, representation is key to self discovery. In today’s episode of QPS, Mars Tarassenko is joined by Renata Pérez-Hernández in exploring the intersectionality of Latine and Queer identities in poetry and literature. Join us as we pad the reading list for our roomie book club and share stories of our personal experiences with recognizing ourselves in the works we read. We discuss Benjamin Alire Saenz’s novel Aristo...

Mars and Ollie sit down and discuss how being disabled/chronically ill inherently changes one’s view on the world, and how, through poetry, one can better cope with the flawed systems that are meant to take care of us. With topics ranging from the rise of the Cripple Punk movement, to mainstream artists such as Halsey using their voice to raise awareness, we explore how disabled poetry is a cornerstone of intersectional artistry.

Today we delve into the world of Sappho, an ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Known for her lyric poetry, she focused on love, desire, and passionate personal emotions. Often called the "Tenth Muse," her work was highly admired in antiquity, though much of it survives only in fragments. Little of her work remains, and little is known about her life, we do know she is associated with themes of homoerotic love.