“The heartland is a perpetual state of mind, a place more pervasive than the literality of a land before them ...”

In Among the Leaves, 18 queer male poets share stories what it means to live in the Midwest. We learn what it’s like for them to play football and come up short. We feel their lingering effects of bullying. We experience the undeniable power of seasons affecting their moods as they ache for a meaningful connection. We learn what it means to celebrate in spite of the odds against them. But more than anything, we discover anew through their poems the redemptive power of love and renewal among the leaves growing and falling.

The poets included in this anthology are: Walter Beck, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, James Cihlar, Jack Fritscher, Brent Goodman, George Klawitter, Christopher Leland, John Medeiros, Stephen S. Mills, Michael Kiesow Moore, Timothy Murphy, William Reichard, James Schwartz, Gregg Shapiro, Jim Stewart, Whittier Strong, Malcolm Stuhlmiller, and Scott Wiggerman.

“The poetry in Among the Leaves crackles to life across plains both arid and wintry, from first crushes on grain-fed jock boys to fathers brandishing Bibles, guns, and catcher’s mitts. The Midwest is brought into sharp focus by a group of top-notch poets unafraid to explode the myth of the American heartland and expose the gritty, hard-scrabble realities of growing up gay there. I can’t remember an anthology so full of varied voices and styles that so deftly defines a region.”
— Collin Kelley, author of Render and Slow to Burn