Caref, Alanis Zoe Castillo 2023
Poetry @ the Green with Alanis Zoe Castillo Caref
320 S. Canal
Featuring:
With Poets in Residence:
My grandmother said it was going to be long—as long as you can hold your lineage—depending on how long you can hold your tongue—as long as your tongue can wrap around the pit—of some stolen stone fruit—as long as you can hide your pitter-patter face—glued in sun-split splinters—lengthening shadows as long as your face—longing to be mirrored back—back to your daughter your mother your grandmother—freckle by freckle—furnished forever across—the long loaming haul—
– Jane Wong, “The Long Labors”
Watch Jane Wong’s 2023 reading at the Chicago Poetry Center:
Jane Wong begins at 49:52 minutes.
Check out Jane Wong’s work in “The Poetics of Haunting in Asian American Poetry,” a digital humanities project:
http://poeticsofhaunting.com/
I was waiting for something
to arrive. I didn’t know what.
Something buoyed, something
sun knocked. I placed my palms
up, little pads of butter, expecting.
All day, nothing. Longer than
that. My hair grew, fell out,
grew. Outside my window, I felt
the flick of a tail in September
wind. A bobcat sauntered across
the grass before me, the black tip
of its tail a pencil I’d like to sharpen.
– Jane Wong, “The Waiting”
Watch musician Audrey Nuna read Jane Wong’s poem “I Put on My Fur Coat” for The New York Times Style Magazine:
Video: Read T a Poem | Audrey Nuna
The singer and rapper reads the poem “I Put on My Fur Coat” (2021) by Jane Wong.
The overgrown weeds
and wilting wisteria
Defy the winter
by daring not to die—
Their seedlings spread,
spring, into a mess.
– Stephanie Liang, “Yardwork”
I would not call myself a Nazi sympathizer—
What does that word even mean, sympathizer?
But ever since that time in the 4th grade
When my arch nemesis Maureen
Invited me to her birthday party,
I realized I needed to give more people a chance.
You’re probably thinking, well she’s not a Nazi.
– Stephanie Liang, “Birthday Parties and Nazis”
Watch Adam Gottlieb’s “Pedagogy of the Poets”:
Watch Adam Gottlieb perform “Poet Breathe Now” from Louder Than A Bomb:
Watch Nile Lansana perform his piece “Swerve”:
In other sounds
E wants a mother
[unclear] I hear
bad. Trachea,
trace—translate
[hiss] chase
meaning’s
severed half-
lives for cantos.
– Noa Micaela Fields, “Echolalia”
rustle plastic bags of outside food in
movie theaters/talk out of turn
in the swallow-dark light/believe
trash should be/as confetti/everywhere
in the viaducts’ shadow/souring in gutters’
craw/jaywalk with the urgency of sloth /split
verbs meaningfully
– CM Burroughs, “Our People I”
Watch CM Burroughs’ 2023 reading with Eugenia Leigh at the Chicago Poetry Center:
CM Burroughs begins at 21:56 minutes.
Everybody is doing trigger warnings now, so
To Whom It May Concern, I hated God
when my sister died. I didn’t know it was
coming, but we were at the hospital in a private
room for family, and our pastor
was there, the one who baptized me, and
he said Let us pray, and I kept my eyes
open to watch everybody, but
listened, and when he said Sometimes
God has to take back his angels,
I was smart enough to know, I was 14, that
he was saying she was gone or going
– CM Burroughs, “God Letter”
Watch CM Burroughs read from her poetry collection Master Suffering:
Read CM Burrough’s interview with Literary Hub:
The Poetics of the Body: An Interview With CM Burroughs
In this next installment of our series of interviews with contemporary poets, Peter Mishler corresponded with CM Burroughs. Burroughs is Associate Professor of Poetry at Columbia College Chicago, a…
My baby brandishes a wooden knife
meant to halve a wooden shallot
as he hollers his newest word. Knife.
Look at my son, flashing
his dagger, jamming it into plush
animals. Knife, knife. Look at him,
oblivious to the weapons
littering his lineage or, God forbid,
possessed by them.
– Eugenia Leigh, “Glossolalia”
Watch Eugenia Leigh’s 2023 reading with CM Burroughs at the Chicago Poetry Center:
Eugenia Leigh begins at 43:46 minutes.
The rest of us,
trembling among our mothers’
bargain trench coats, waited
for Narnia. There, we dreamed
we were the children
of lions. Heirs to our own beds.
– Eugenia Leigh, “Children of Lions”
Watch Eugenia Leigh in conversation with Patricia Smith:
Read Eugenia Leigh’s interview with Frontier Poetry:
Poet in the Mirror: Eugenia Leigh | Frontier Poetry – Exploring the Edges of Contemporary Poetry
We’re so proud to share some insight into the lives and hearts of today’s poets with our Poet In The Mirror series. This month, Eugenia Leigh-author of Bianca (available now from Four Way Books)-shares insight into process, writing as an…
The surrounding sound of shattering glass
The air, thick with angst
A chorus of hopeful chants
Sent electric shocks that shook State street.
– Luis Tubens, “Brown Solidarity for Black Lives”
Watch Logan Lu read his poem, “Abuela’s Kitchen”:
Watch Logan Lu perform his poem, “Phone Call”: