Poetry is Queer is a kaleidoscope of sexual outlaws, gay icons, Sapphic poets, and great lovers—real and imagined—conjured like gateway drugs to a queer world. Claiming the word “queer” for those “who self-proclaim the authority of their own bodies in defiance of church and state,” Kirby pays tribute to gay touchstones while embodying both their work and joy. From gazing upon street boys with constant companion C.P. Cavafy, to end of day observances with Frank O’Hara, to mowing Walt Whitman’s grass, Poetry Is Queer is a hybrid-genre memoir like no other.

Kirby’s work includes What Do You Want To Be Called? (Anstruther Press, 2020), This Is Where I Get Off (Permanent Sleep Press, 2019) and She’s Having a Doris Day (Knife Fork Book, 2017). They are the publisher / book fairy at knife | fork | book [Toronto]. jeffkirby.ca

Kirby's profile page

“Kirby teaches us to explore the parts of ourselves the world wants to render impossible, to deny, dismiss, or even destroy, and to do so with the various voices and connections, protests and ecstasies, poetry makes possible.”

Daniel Scott Tysdal, Wave Forms and Doom Scrolls