Love Is a Dangerous Word

Title: Love Is a Dangerous Word
Author: Essex Hemphill
Poetry: 1678175
ISBN: 9780811232340
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2025
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Section: Poetry | LGBTQ+
Condition Note: New from the publisher
Publisher Description:

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.