I fell in love with 20th queer century lit a few years ago, and now I eagerly seek out all the queer books I can from 40, 50, 60, 100 years ago. It’s led me to some of my favorite novels ever (I’m looking at you, Alexis). Love, Leda is another one. This “forgotten” novel was written by queer poet Mark Hyatt in the 1960s. Most of Hyatt’s work was published posthumously in the late 1970s and 1980s, but this manuscript was not discovered until the 2020s. The book includes a fantastic intro by Huw Lemmy and a thoughtful afterward by Luke Roberts, who edited the manuscript, which gives more context about Hyatt’s life and the book itself.
I loved this book for for the way it so beautifully illuminates both the material world (streets, money, cups of coffee, the subway) and Leda’s inner world. But it’s also an incredible — and heartbreaking — piece of queer history. It made me think a lot about what gets published and what gets lost. It contains several graphic sex scenes, and it’s also decidedly working-class. It’s nothing at all like The Charioteer, published in the UK in 1953, which I also loved. The Charioteer is undeniably gay, but it’s also undeniably upper class. It’s a novel built of silences, subtext, euphemisms. Love, Leda, in contrast, is refreshing in its bluntness, in Leda’s refusal to hide from himself, even when it would be easier or less painful. I felt a little bit bereft, reading it, wondering how many other novels like this were written and lost, because they — and their authors — did not conform to some standard of “acceptable.” I’m so glad this book has finally been published, and, at the same time, its publication feels like a portal into a thousand invisible archives I’ll never see. Reading it, I felt the same way I felt reading Lou Sullivan’s diaries: What a gift, and how desperately I’d rather the author of the gift was still here instead, that the gift need not have been given this way. The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk. This week, we’re highlighting the best new poetry collections of 2025 (so far)! From the deeply personal to powerfully political, many of these collections reflect the zeitgeist and introduce some fresh voices in poetry. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post. How is it that we’re already more than a quarter of the way through 2025? I’m ahead of my reading goals and still feel so far behind at the same time. I’ve packed in plenty of poetry, though, finding lots of wonderful and surprising voices emerging. It’s early, but totally time to check in with some of the best new poetry collections of 2025 so far. It’s funny how timely these collections are. Keep in mind that publishing moves VERY SLOWLY, so books that have been released in the first quarter of 2025 were probably completed in late 2023 or early 2024, only seeing the light of day recently. So, these collections were written in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. Nevertheless, many of these collections feel like guttural reactions to the world right now. Amazing how prescient art and artists can be, huh? These poetry collections run the gamut from deeply personal to powerfully political. Let’s face it, those two are often the same anyway, particularly when it comes to poetry. Most exciting to me is how many of these best new poetry collections of 2025 so far are fresh voices to the poetic scene. Let’s dig into those collections, shall we? Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.
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