Happy and Safe Pride

Posted on by sereichert

In honor of Pride Month and celebrating all of the amazing human beings, in their struggled to be themselves, live fully, and be safe from violence and oppression, I’m doing all I can to support LGBTQ+ writers and poets. Listed below are a group of wonderful authors and their work that you should check out. If you can buy from them directly do, and leave positive reviews if you have some to give. Each one is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to understand and to find connection. Not just this month, but every month. Enjoy and be the loving force for change you want to see in the world.

  • One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina
  • As Beautiful as Any Other: A Memoir of My Body by Kaya Wilson
  • La Bâtarde by Violette Leduc, translated by Derek Coltman
  • The Truth About Me: a Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi, translated by V Geetha
  • The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
  • The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser
  • Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
  • My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi, translated by Jocelyne Allen
  • People Change by Vivek Shraya
  • Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto by Edafe Okporo
  • Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox
  • We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
  • Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi
  • The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
  • Red Azalea by Anchee Min
  • Me Hijra, Me Laxmi by Laxminarayan Tripathi, translated by PG Joshi and R. Raj Rao
  • They Called Me Queer compiled by Kim Windvogel and Kelly-Eve Koopman
  • Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi
  • Angry Queer Somali Boy: A Complicated Memoir by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali
  • Thérèse and Isabelle by Violette Leduc, translated by Sophie Lewis (1966)
  • Maurice by EM Forster (1971)
  • Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (1928)
  • America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo
  • Hotel World by Ali Smith
  • Less by Sean Andrew Greer
  • The Price of Salt aka Carol by Patricia Highsmith
  • Valencia by Michelle Tea
  • Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
  • Paper is White by Hilary Zaid
  • Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg.
  • Orlando by Virginia Woolf
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
  • Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn
  • Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by Tony Kushner
  • Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
  • The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
  • Tea by Stacey D’Erasmo
  • Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
  • Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
  • Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
  • Marriage of A Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu
  • Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
  • Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
  • Close to Spider Man by Ivan E. Coyote
  • Jack Holmes and His Friend by Edmund White
  • A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
  • Fruit by Brian Francis
  • Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
  • Morrow Island by Alexis M. Smith
  • Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg
  • Confucius Jane by Katie Lynch
  • Little Fish by Casey Plett
  • Such a Lonely, Lovely Road by Kagiso Lesego Molope
  • She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya
  • For Today I Am A Boy by Kim Fu
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
  • Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
  • Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala
  • The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
  • Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson
  • Hood by Emma Donoghue
  • Blue Boy By Rakesh Satyal
  • My Education by Susan Choi
  • Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
  • We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
  • Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno
  • 48 Shades Of Brown by Nick Earls
  • Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman (2007)
  • The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak by Grace Lau
  • Butcher by Natasha T. Miller
  • Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
  • The Renunciations by Donika Kelly
  • Bestiary by Donika Kelly
  • Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
  • You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson
  • Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson
  • Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans
  • Black Queer Hoe by Britteney Black Rose Kapri
  • If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar
  • Nothing is Okay by Rachel Wiley
  • Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernández Castillo
  • The Tradition by Jericho Brown
  • Soft Science by Franny Choi
  • Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
  • Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
  • When the Chant Comes by Kay Ulanday Barrett
  • More Than Organs by Kay Ulanday Barrett
  • Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
  • Things You Left Behind by Keondra Bills Freemyn
  • Femme in Public by Alok Vaid-Menon
  • Wild Embers by Nikita Gill
  • Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles (1994)

BOOKS: POETRY

Poetry 5-22-25

Posted on by sereichert

I’m in a weird mood today. This is the season of transitions, of pressures and demands, and I feel like I’m shutting down in the face of so much of it. Here’s a weird poem to align the inner workings of my mind to the outer life, relentlessly attacking. 

Sweater

I put your memory on
like an old sweater
in all the little winters
of my despair

Here the arms pull through
to hide the stinging cuts
Here, ribbed neck fraying
to protect from the noose of loss

Here the cabled warmth
falling over my eviscerated belly
Here your memory tucks my vital pieces 
back together, safe and warm

The woolen comfort of words
I will never hear again
from nights you probably don't remember
a softness in the dark, held briefly

I am a lint fuzz on your shoulder
but you are my favorite sweater
the one I cannot sleep without
the only thing that offers relief

Purpose and hope exist
in the scratchy bulk
of a garment I once borrowed
but was never mine to wear

I put your memory on
like my favorite sweater
in all these winters
of self-imposed despair.

Poetry and Poetic Books

Posted on by sereichert

I’m going to drive ya’ll nuts, but there’s a link below, if you’re interested in buying my latest book; “No Words After I Love You”.

This stand alone novel is a journey through grief, friendship, creativity and love. It’s about how the heart heals, (or doesn’t) and all the ways humans punish themselves in an effort to be ‘strong’. It’s about deep-seated friends, the kind you’d answer the phone for, even if you don’t answer the phone. It’s about choosing your own family, and learning how to let go the wounds from the real one. Its about trying not to fall in love, even when your heart is already decided. It’s about soup, and rain on dirt roads, its about knowing how they take their coffee and a campaign for bushier, wilder eyebrows. It’s about denouncing god and still finding divinity. Check it out: BUY NO WORDS AFTER I LOVE YOU

And now, a short poem:

Daredevil

My heart does all her own stunts
Never one to sit back from the danger
or sip Rosé while someone else 
takes the fall

Oh no, she's always been 
all in

She sees the perilous ledge
the death defying leap
the broken bone canyon 
and nods with bravado
flicks her Marlborough into the abyss
exhales the clouds of calm
and dives in

My heart does all her own stunts
but the scars are starting to show
and the puckered skin 
and toughened hide
cannot beat as strongly
as her younger self once did
The bullets she's taken, stab wounds
and excisions
the irreparable losses that linger
in phantom limb syndrome
beat ragged and untimed

My heart does all her own stunts
but I cannot convince her to stop

Poetry 4-10-2025

Posted on by sereichert 
The Other Half Lives

She breaks the silence
with the crack of a match strike
instant whirl of smoke
and snap
open jumps the flame

She’s Magic on dark nights
when I need reprieve
from myself
when I yearn
to slip into someone
else’s skin and be
the one my parents
warned me about

The kind who lives truth
through match strikes
and bared teeth and
hard, dirty alleys
rough brick scraping
backs of thighs
and halting breath
that never begs

Unleashed from boredom
She carries the burning ember of strife
at the end of her cigarette and
coaxes the glowing cinder with
deep inhalations
Blowing out sinuous tails
through lips
split by love

Back again for more?
Quirked eyebrow, pierced and dauntless

yes, again
pray unbroken lips
with underground currents
of tightly wound desire.

S.E. Reichert

Poetry 3-13-25

Posted on by sereichert 
HEART

She is a bore
and a lofty braggart
claiming forever
but following the newest smell 
away from her leash

She is tender and full
a bag tensed, to burst
at the slightest slight
heavy with blood and the suffering of want

She is the doorway
to a thousand churches
and the carnal sacrilege 
of all good, and wild things

She is latin
for courageous
and holds my breath and my breathlessness
in space between her beats

She is a pauper
always begging 
and a selfless saint
giving away all of her compassion in bills
like she could not take it with her

She dances in the kitchen
with a baby on her hip
even when that baby is 
long, gone
grown

She lights up like Christmas
and echoes in dark gothic hallways

She shudders and trips
beats steady and sound
she's the only one I can ever claim
is mine
And yet, so often
I still think her, 
a stranger
in my chest

We couldn't live without each other.
I hope
whatever the next life brings
I can take her with me.

Poetry 2-20-25

Posted on by sereichert

I’ve been participating in my own little poetry month challenge in an effort to get back into the swing of the art. For one, it’s a managable way for me to be able to write something every day, even in the chaos of my to do list. For two, I think it’s been very cathartic in helping me work through some of the things landing in my life (and all of our lives right now). The rage inside me finds a place on the page so I can clear a more rational path. The sadness gets to have its moment too, so I can move past the emotion and focus on how best to use my empathy. You don’t have to be good at it to write poetry. You just have to write it.

Photo by aj povey on Pexels.com
Daylight

Poems written by daylight
are hopeful, funny creatures
not yet domesticated by the world
shackled by the weight of 
unbearable odds

Poems written in the high-sun hours
are words through clear eyes
not yet burning with the fire of 
thousands of thoughts, words read,
millions of stitches placed across the
wound of our burning, tumultuous world

Poems written when I've still got time in the day
are different
I haven't properly fucked anything up
yet
there is still hope that I may not
I'm a glowing human goddess
for whom possibilities still exist

Poems written by daylight
seem hopeful and clear
unweighted and resilient
but they are 
not me
not in total
It is the reticent dark, the weary and
mistake-riddled soul
sitting in the deep weighted night,
still choosing to pick up the pen 
who is truly
the poet.

Poetry 1-23-2025

Posted on by sereichert

It’s a tumultuous time. An era where its hard to trust information, its hard to have privacy, and its even harder to envision a world where we can be a functioning community again. These are the days that try good hearts. You are not alone. We are all in some phase of struggle. We are all clawing our way up. I love you. I see you. Do what you can, to be kind to yourself and others today. Don’t give up. 

Love Me Enough

I've tried to breathe it away
this constant ache 
a hunger, not satiated

I've tried to busy it away
with lists 
and checked boxes

I've tried running it away
until my knees were torn
and my vertebra grew together

I've tried laughing it away
your darkest friend
is always the most funny

I've tried writing it away
harsh words and compassionate pages
like arms to enfold, or choke

I've tried drinking it away,
until all I lost were words
and years with my children

I've tried cutting it away
sharp stings and
barely hidden red bracelets

hoping someone would notice
but even when they did
no one loved me enough to stop me

I'm trying to love me enough to stop me
I'm trying, this time
to love it away

And I'm learning
that means
feeding myself on breath
sitting through it in stillness
running headlong into the fire
allowing the storm to laugh through me
and writing only the truth
watering my brain like a garden
holding my body close like a child
Soothing the scars and 
loving the woman who survived long enough
to stand in love now

Poetry 12-26-2024

Posted on by sereichert

This is my last post of 2024. I’m not sure what this new year will bring, or how much strife and struggle will be faced. I am reminding myself to find hope. In the kindness of my own heart as well as the goodness of other people I know. I hope you are getting some reflective time this week, to think about the year ahead, the things you need to prioritize and the things you are ready to let go of. I hope you are resting up for the fight to come.

Here’s a poem that was inspired by one of my favorite humans. Thank you Mary Oliver, for all the gracious insight into this wild and weird ride of life. 

Built to Survive

And oh how it pains me,
this disastrous cause
so far removed from the fresh, cold fields
and the dying gray-pink
of November dusk

I am caught in the trappings 
of an ever-present demand
create, create, create
sell, and buy, and break the book's spine
over the truncated timeline,
more concerned for a deadline
than the beautiful present view
before my own dead line

We do not see the muskrat 
in this way go
He does not build with wet, cold reeds
and fallen branches
to impress the critic

He builds to survive
He creates to have warm shelter
from the uncertain storms of life
He does what he does, because he knows 
no other way

How it pains me
this rushing through my words 
and upheaval of capricious page numbers 
flipping and fighting and settling 
for the shallow pond,
when my heart is an ocean
and this art is my shelter
its honesty, my survival
the only trueness left
in the short and tiresome struggle
of this one wild life.

Poetry 12-12-24

Posted on by sereichert 
In Quiet
 
Snow buries the sound
of footsteps and breath
all softness of touch
and heavy with forgiveness.
 
A blanket of repose,
to cover the spoiled ground,
wiping clean this slate,
to a world of potential and rest
 
Waiting.
Patient.

Not asking to be changed,
a pristine shroud to remind us
that some things are best left,
untouched.

Poetry 11-21-24

Posted on by sereichert

October was a wonderful month and I’m actually working towards keeping up my ‘poem-a-day’ even when it turns into more of a journal entry. Sometimes writing is not just one thing, and the poetry of the everyday counts just the same. Sometimes its the way we work through past hurts, even when they aren’t really a part of our present anymore. Sometimes the lines of verse are tiny cuts to the lines that hold us to those things not meant for us. The heart is a wild and rampant beast sometimes and we all deal with the fallout of her decisions differently. Hopefully we learn something new, each time.

Untitled

I’ve written so many lines about you
tracked tears under every constellation 
ached under the flowering trees
and sweated out remorse under July skies

I’ve worried for you,
rued you
let the storms of winter freeze 
any embers I thought remained

Still they simmer past
all reason, reemerging in my heart
where not even a desire to live resides

You were the fall of my empire
and yet I still find you in the rubbled remains 
the inconsistent wound
that does not ever, ever heal.

It is heart deep and tragic and
I never know what to do
when it opens
again, and again
and again...

Do I press fluttering hands to it
failure to staunch the bleeding in my own weakened state?
Numb the pain with earthly asides?
Embrace it and lick at the blood,
ravenous for even the slightest taste of your attention?

If I have changed in these many years
then I know you have too
So how can I still claim to burn
for a specter who is no longer 
the same that haunts my mind's halls?

How can my same old heart
have not grown along with
this hardened shell
and deepening wrinkles?
How has my tough hide not
pushed out the sliver of you
buried in my irate skin?

How can you still pull at my insides?
It is an irrational and hungry storm
and I am weary of trying to tie my lines against it

I guess after millions of years
the moon still pulls the sea
and no one begs to wonder why.