The Gift of Words: SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like: Poetry by Women for Women an Anthology

As you finish up your holiday shopping, the Editors recommend adding one (or more!) of our fabulous titles to your list.

SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like is an anthology of love poetry by 120 lesbian and bisexual women ranging in age from 15 to 87 from around the globe. This is a book that should be gifted. In spite of its implied audience, Smitten is not just for women who adore women. It is for those whose hearts twist and skin prickles at romance, who know the flight of butterflies in their stomachs, who long for the feeling of home in another’s heart.

“This is poetry that penetrates into the heart of not only the experience of lesbian love, but into what love means to the human psyche. These are emotions that live in each of us; that they are expressed here with a uniquely feminine interpretation truly enriches the palette of lesbian literature.

Women poets have here found a stage upon which they can present their passions and intimate feelings openly and in unison. SMITTEN brings the beauty and intricacies of women’s love for each other into a unique and captivating presentation. With the publication of this volume, Indie Blu(e) remains at the forefront of giving lesbian literature a new and important direction.

Lesbian writers have long suffered the neglect of history and the close-mindedness of the world of literature and have yet somehow managed to rise above the indifference and the prejudice to express their distinctive creativity. The women represented in SMITTEN are strong voices confidently expressing their individuality. Perhaps Sappho verbalized it best when over two thousand years ago she wrote:

“May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.“

Yes, that is the kind of poetry to be found within the pages of SMITTEN.”

-Erik Klingenberg, blogger, nightpoetry

“Love doesn’t have just one “look” to it and I thank SMITTEN for reminding readers of that.

Love transcends race and gender.”

– Christy Birmingham, Versions of the Self

“Too often we sideline LGBTQ+ work as a genre of its own, when it should be mainstream; literary works which are written by people to be enjoyed by people, no matter what their race, sexuality, gender and/or religion.

Yet, until this happens, I applaud Daquin and Indie Blu(e) Publishing for brazenly making a stand. Until labels are but words and not identifiers, it is important that writers like those in this collection share their voices and stories, ever-lasting love and heartbreak, and their hopes and fears, to remind the literary world they will be heard, no matter what the response may be.”

-Kristiana Reed, Flowers on the Wall

SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like: Poetry by Women for Women an Anthology is available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, IndieBound, Chapters/Indigo, Waterstones, Book Depository, and from other major online retailers.

ISBN-13:‎ 978-1951724009