Collective Brightness: Lgbtiq Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality

Brief Description: "Collective Brightness features established and emerging poets from around the world."--P. 18. Publisher Marketing: The first anthology of its kind, with poets representing several countries (the United States, Singapore, Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Japan and elsewhere), Collective Brightness gathers over 100 established and emerging contemporary LGBTIQ poets writing from and about various faiths, religions and spiritual traditions. Says Rigoberto Gonzalez of National Book Critics Circle, "Collective Brightness sheds a shining light on a journey that no longer takes place in the dark. The glory of holding Kevin Simmonds's anthology in one's hands is that it burns as the sacred text of our queer times: heavy with burden, luminous with hope."

Contributor Bio:  Simmonds, Kevin Kevin Simmonds is a writer and musician originally from New Orleans. His writing appears in Asia Literary Review, Chroma, FIELD, Fuselit, jubilat, Kyoto Journal, Massachusetts Review, Poetry and elsewhere. He wrote the musical score for the documentary Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica which won a 2009 Emmy Award, and Wisteria: Twilight Songs for the Swamp Country, which opened Poetry International at London's Royal Festival Hall and was the subject of a 2007 BBC radio documentary. He has received fellowships from the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Cave Canem, Fulbright, Jack Straw, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Napa Valley Writers' Conference and the San Francisco Arts Commission. He lives in San Francisco. Mad for Meat, his first collection, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2011.