Beautiful Boys

Stanley Iyanu is a performance poet and writer from London. His spoken word poetry style has been described as having the “gentle power of a slow ocean building. Before you know it, you’ll be rocking hither and thither to his sirenic-voiced languid lullaby and loving every tidal second of it”. A multi-slam winner, his poems have been published in the Poetry Society magazine as well as internationally. He has performed across the UK, most notably for Apples & Snakes, BBC Radio London and for the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

'Iyanu's poems are contemporary in their phrasing even while they deal in the glitter and heartache of nineties love; addressed to various habibis, amores and darlings, they delight in their unstintingly open-hearted sexiness.'Martha Sprackland'The Beautiful Boys is a book that moves like a body on a dancefloor—sweaty, tender, defiant, full of want. Stanley Iyanu writes queerness not as confession but as pulse: desire flickers through myth, Grindr chats, scripture, kitchens, clubs, and warzones, carried by a language that can moan, pray, and sing in the same breath. These poems understand rhythm the way lovers do—when to rush, when to pause, when to repeat until it hurts. There is music here: pop anthems, hymns, the low hum of grief, the bassline of survival. Iyanu’s voice is intimate and unafraid, holding queer bodies at the centre without apology, refusing erasure while honouring softness. This is a book that loves loudly, mourns honestly, and insists that beauty—especially ours—remains sacred, even when the world tries to look away.'Leo Boix, author of Southernmost: Sonnets and Ballad of a Happy Immigrant