or the Gods invites the reader to embrace their queer heritage with disarming tenderness, and urges them to celebrate the joy of gay sex without shame.

Plaintive and joyous, sexy and ferocious--often all at once--Hated for the Gods is as much a call to action as it is a work of literature. Gorgeously rendered and skillfully constructed both to educate and inspire, Sean Patrick Mulroy's poetry weaves together stories from his coming of age in the American South of the 1990s with the broader history of gay men in America. The result is a politically radical text that will leave you shocked with all you didn't know about the history of queer people, and surprised by what you already knew but never could articulate.

A world-renowned poet and award-winning scholar, Mulroy's work exists in a lineage of fearless gay literature; from Shakespeare to Siken, Genji to Ginsberg. Masterfully intricate, yet effortlessly approachable, by turns hopeful and incendiary, Hated for the Gods, is a must-read for the LGBT+ community and their loved ones.