Love Is a Dangerous Word-Quality Guarantee

Description

Title: Love Is a Dangerous Word

Author: Essex Hemphill

ISBN: 9780811232340

Publisher: New Directions

Published: 2025

Binding: Paperback

Language: English

Condition Note: New from the publisher

Publisher :

For three decades, the legacy of writer, editor, performer, and activist Essex Hemphill has been lovingly sustained through xeroxed copies of his few published works. They are as potent now as they were in the 1980s. With tenderness and rage, Hemphill’s poems unflinchingly explore the complex, overlapping identities of sexuality, gender, and race, the American political landscape, and his own experiences as a black gay man during the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Edited by John Keene and Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Love is a Dangerous Word contains selections from Hemphill’s only published full-length collection, Ceremonies–named one of the 25 most influential works of postwar queer literature by the New York Times–alongside rarely seen poems from magazines and chapbooks. It serves as both an introduction to Hemphill’s poetic prowess and a treasure trove for those who have long awaited his return to the literary spotlight.