16 must-read queer books like The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly

Cover of The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly

The Renunciations: Poems

By: Donika Kelly

4.29

Format: 94 pages, Paperback

An extraordinary collection of endurance and transformation by the award-winning author of Bestiary…

If you liked the queer plot in The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly , here is a list of 16 books like this:

Cover of Sharks in the Rivers by Ada Limon

1. Sharks in the Rivers

By: Ada Limon

3.95

Format: 269 pages, Paperback

The speaker in this extraordinary collection finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood … read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's Sharks in the Rivers book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
Cover of What the Living Do: Poems by Marie Howe

2. What the Living Do: Poems

By: Marie Howe

3.00

Format: 48 pages, Paperback

Informed by the death of a beloved brother, here are the stories of childhood, its thicket of sex a… read more

Similar categories in Marie Howe's What the Living Do: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • adult
  • queer
Cover of Short Talks by Anne Carson

3. Short Talks

By: Anne Carson

4.00

Format: None pages, Paperback

Poetry. In Anne Carson's SHORT TALKS the reader is bombarded with short prose poems that resound wi… read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Short Talks book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
Cover of Prelude to Bruise by Saeed Jones

4. Prelude to Bruise

By: Saeed Jones

3.17

Format: None pages, Paperback

From "Sleeping Arrangement": Take your hand out from under my pillow. And take your sheets with you… read more

Similar categories in Saeed Jones's Prelude to Bruise book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • queer
  • lgbt

5. Bright Dead Things

By: Ada Limon

3.57

Format: None pages,

Bright Dead Things examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you k… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's Bright Dead Things book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

6. When My Brother Was an Aztec

By: Natalie Díaz

3.66

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

"I write hungrysentences," Natalie Diaz once explained in an interview, "because they want more and… read more

Similar categories in Natalie Díaz's When My Brother Was an Aztec book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

7. Calling a Wolf a Wolf

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.00

Format: 98 pages, Paperback

"The struggle from late youth on, with and without God, agony, narcotics and love is a torment rare… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Calling a Wolf a Wolf book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

8. Life on Mars

By: Tracy K. Smith

4.45

Format: 122 pages,

You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib.… read more

Similar categories in Tracy K. Smith's Life on Mars book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

Cover of frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

9. frank: sonnets

By: Diane Seuss

4.50

Format: 137 pages, Paperback

WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY WINNER OF THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD … read more

Similar categories in Diane Seuss's frank: sonnets book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
  • queer
  • lgbt
"I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It tipped back its head to receive the minor tenderness, which to the b…"

-Diane Seuss, frank: sonnets

Cover of The Tradition by Jericho Brown

10. The Tradition

By: Jericho Brown

4.24

Format: 77 pages, Paperback

Jericho Brown’s daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at … read more

Similar categories in Jericho Brown's The Tradition book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • adult
  • queer
"The opposite of rape is understanding."

-Jericho Brown, The Tradition

"Nobody in this nation feels safe, and I'm still a reason why."

-Jericho Brown, The Tradition

"There is the happiness you have And the happiness you deserve."

-Jericho Brown, The Tradition

"We few left who listen to the radio leave Ourselves available to surprise."

-Jericho Brown, The Tradition

Cover of Pilgrim Bell: Poems by Kaveh Akbar

11. Pilgrim Bell: Poems

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.24

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

Kaveh Akbar’s exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf. With formal virtuos… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Pilgrim Bell: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • the united states of america
  • lgbt
  • adult
  • queer
"Wrath is the desire to repay what you've suffered."

-Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell: Poems

"Whatever I learn makes me angry to have learned it."

-Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell: Poems

Cover of The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi

12. The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

By: Franny Choi

3.99

Format: 144 pages, Hardcover

From acclaimed poet Franny Choi comes a poetry collection for the ends of worlds--past, present, an… read more

Similar categories in Franny Choi's The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • adult
  • queer
"I have last year's ashes in my throat, stories stuffed so full of morals they bleed sugar."

-Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

"How can I explain the things and things and things I did wrong? I was never any good at telling the difference between what wanted me and what wanted me gone"

-Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Cover of The Hurting Kind: Poems by Ada Limon

13. The Hurting Kind: Poems

By: Ada Limon

4.34

Format: 120 pages, Hardcover

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ou… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's The Hurting Kind: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
  • the united states of america
"There is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce. I would die for it."

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

"Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested…"

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

Cover of I Do Everything I'm Told by Megan Fernandes

14. I Do Everything I'm Told

By: Megan Fernandes

4.17

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Restless, contradictory, and witty, Megan Fernandes’ I Do Everything I’m Told explores disobedience… read more

Similar categories in Megan Fernandes's I Do Everything I'm Told book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • queer
  • fiction
  • lgbt
Cover of All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets) by Paul Tran

15. All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

By: Paul Tran

3.87

Format: 112 pages, Paperback

A profound meditation on physical, emotional, and psychological transformation in the aftermath of … read more

Similar categories in Paul Tran's All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets) book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • queer
  • queer lit
  • lgbt
"There is no truth. Only a version. Aversion. A verge. A vengeance."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"I see not stars but their light reaching across the distance between us."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"I, after so much isolation, so much indifference, kept going even if going meant only waiting, hovering in place. So far below, so far away from the rest of life...."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"...an actualized poem requires the actualization, or radical transformation, of the poet - that a poem is the discovery and enactment of an emotional and psychological investigation into the vexed in…"

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

Cover of Bluest Nude: Poems by Ama Codjoe

16. Bluest Nude: Poems

By: Ama Codjoe

4.48

Format: 120 pages, Paperback

Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Ama Codjoe’s highly anticipated de… read more

Similar categories in Ama Codjoe's Bluest Nude: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
Cover of Alive At The End Of The World by Saeed Jones

17. Alive At The End Of The World

By: Saeed Jones

4.35

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author… read more

Similar categories in Saeed Jones's Alive At The End Of The World book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • queer lit
  • adult
  • queer
"The end of the world was mistaken for just another midday massacre in America."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"I wish I knew a woman who was both the light and every shadow the light pierces."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"I'm most dangerous when I'm hungry. I'm most hungry when I'm hurting. Seems like I'm always hurting."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"A few months and many deaths ago, I asked someone "how are you doing" and felt, in the way her eye fell, how I had failed her before I had even reached the end of my question. I've hurt many people b…"

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

Cover of Homie by Danez Smith

18. Homie

By: Danez Smith

4.42

Format: 96 pages, Paperback

Homie is Danez Smith’s magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss … read more

Similar categories in Danez Smith's Homie book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • queer lit
  • adult
  • queer
"the b in debt is a silent black trapped"

-Danez Smith, Homie

"what good is hiding the gun & locking the cabinet if the boy can still find his own hands? if anything that loops can be a rope?"

-Danez Smith, Homie

Cover of Modern Poetry: Poems by Diane Seuss

19. Modern Poetry: Poems

By: Diane Seuss

4.53

Format: 112 pages, Hardcover

Diane Seuss’s signature voice―audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its … read more

Similar categories in Diane Seuss's Modern Poetry: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
Cover of The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang

20. The Trees Witness Everything

By: Victoria Chang

4.20

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

*Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the The New Yorker *Named one of the Best Books of the… read more

Similar categories in Victoria Chang's The Trees Witness Everything book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
Cover of The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly

21. The Renunciations: Poems

By: Donika Kelly

4.29

Format: 94 pages, Paperback

An extraordinary collection of endurance and transformation by the award-winning author of Bestiary… read more

Similar categories in Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • lesbian
  • poetry
  • literary fiction
  • the united states of america
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • queer lit
  • fiction
  • adult
  • queer
Cover of Trace Evidence: Poems by Charif Shanahan

22. Trace Evidence: Poems

By: Charif Shanahan

3.95

Format: 112 pages, Paperback

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST FOR THE KINGSLEY TUFTS POETRY AWARD… read more

Similar categories in Charif Shanahan's Trace Evidence: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
  • lgbt
  • queer
Cover of Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Díaz

23. Postcolonial Love Poem

By: Natalie Díaz

4.33

Format: 107 pages, Paperback

Natalie Diaz’s highly anticipated follow-up to When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American … read more

Similar categories in Natalie Díaz's Postcolonial Love Poem book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • adult
  • queer
"Unsoothable thirst is one kind of haunting"

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"In Mojave, our words for want and need are the same – because why would you want what you don’t need?"

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"Maybe death is a way to clean the self, of the body, to finally celebrate it. A celebration should leave a mess."

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"At the National Museum of the American Indian, 68 percent of the collection is from the United States. I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out."

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

Cover of Customs: Poems by Solmaz Sharif

24. Customs: Poems

By: Solmaz Sharif

4.21

Format: 86 pages, Paperback

In Customs , Solmaz Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal,… read more

Similar categories in Solmaz Sharif's Customs: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • feminism
  • adult
  • the united states of america
Cover of Judas Goat: Poems by Gabrielle Bates

25. Judas Goat: Poems

By: Gabrielle Bates

4.21

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Gabrielle Bates’s electric debut collection Judas Goat plumbs the depths of intimate relationships.… read more

Similar categories in Gabrielle Bates's Judas Goat: Poems book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • fiction
Cover of You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limon

26. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World

By: Ada Limon

4.11

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

Published association  with the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate o… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
Cover of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen

27. Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

By: Chen Chen

4.15

Format: 128 pages, Paperback

What happens when everything falls away, when those you call on in times of need are themselves cal… read more

Similar categories in Chen Chen's Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • adult
  • queer
"If we could communicate fully, there would be no need to communicate. If we could love perfectly, there would be no need to love. If we could finish grieving, there would be no need to live. If we co…"

-Chen Chen, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

"You climb back in bed & touch my face. You climb back in bed to touch my face. You wrap your arms around me & it’s like you’re the patron saint if touch as well as soft sunlight & soothed dogs. Or yo…"

-Chen Chen, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

Cover of Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

28. Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees

By: Aimee Nezhukumatathil

4.12

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders, a lyrical book of short essays abou… read more

Similar categories in Aimee Nezhukumatathil's Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • adult
Cover of Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen

29. Ghost Of

By: Diana Khoi Nguyen

4.36

Format: 88 pages, Paperback

Ghost Of elegizes a brother lost via suicide, is a mourning song for the idea of family, a family h… read more

Similar categories in Diana Khoi Nguyen's Ghost Of book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
Cover of Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco by K. Iver

30. Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco

By: K. Iver

4.59

Format: 88 pages, Paperback

Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco, selected by Tyehimba Jess for the 2022 Ballard Spahr P… read more

Similar categories in K. Iver's Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • queer
  • fiction
  • lgbt
Cover of Wound from the Mouth of a Wound by torrin a. greathouse

31. Wound from the Mouth of a Wound

By: torrin a. greathouse

4.42

Format: 88 pages, Paperback

“Some girls are not made,” torrin a. greathouse writes, “but spring from the dirt.” Guided by a dev… read more

Similar categories in torrin a. greathouse's Wound from the Mouth of a Wound book and Donika Kelly's The Renunciations: Poems

  • poetry
  • queer
  • lgbt

7 Top fiction books like The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly

Transform Your Habits

The Tradition

Jericho Brown

4.24

Transform Your Habits

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Franny Choi

3.99

Transform Your Habits

I Do Everything I'm Told

Megan Fernandes

4.17

Transform Your Habits

The Renunciations: Poems

Donika Kelly

4.29

View all the books

6 best-selling fiction books like Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen

Transform Your Habits

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Franny Choi

3.99

Transform Your Habits

I Do Everything I'm Told

Megan Fernandes

4.17

Transform Your Habits

Judas Goat: Poems

Gabrielle Bates

4.21

Transform Your Habits

Soft Science

Franny Choi

3.93

View all the books

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