Smith, Jazzy 2018
You wear a Hawaiian shirt.
You hold my hand.
We go up an escalator.
You are pie.
Crouching close to you
is whipped cream.
– Jazzy Smith, “Vegas Escalator”
Watch Jazzy Smith read some of her work:
Archive / S…
RSS feed for this sectionStringfellow, Tara 2017
this is what we made
when they chained us
together like dogs
in a savage new world
and bid us toil
no, we said
we will sing
– Tara Stringfellow, “a poem for black girls in their twenties”
loved me but in white
i spoke only negro
meaning i did not know fairy tale
saw it in movies, yes, but saw my daddy
spit on in a park in chicago
grimms negated
– Tara Stringfellow, “my ex-husband”
Watch Tara Stringfellow’s feature on CBS:
my sister collected hair thick as a nest
from all the old combs in the house
buried it deep in red clay
daddy will come back she chanted
– Tara Stringfellow, “hot combs catfish crumbs and bad men”
Soto, Christopher 2016
My heart is a mudslide, it will suffocate you
[stuff your mouth with forestry].
Don’t you know? That broken-boys can’t
make a proper home. Just listen to my chest.
– Christopher Soto, “Hatred of Happiness”
Read this interview with Christopher Soto from Apogee Journal:
http://www.apogeejournal.org/2014/08/nepantla-an-interview-with-christopher-soto/
Say that my body // is not a sequin dress–
Is not a raw fish, being stripped of scales.
Say that I am not // a drunken disco ball
In a lonely skating rink.
– Christopher Soto, “Myself When I Am Real”
I wake with no sleep. Yellow tape is wrapped around my block.
– Christopher Soto, “Oakland, Cal.”
Watch Christopher Soto read his poetry:
Sánchez, Erika L. 2015
a gaggle of silent children
gather before a sputtering
trash bin. Together they watch
the terror hover like flies.
– Erika L. Sánchez, “Kingdom of Debt”
Read this interview with Erika L. Sánchez from NBC:
What I’ve Learned: ‘Poetry Chose Me,’ Says Writer Erika L. Sánchez
Erika L. Sánchez, a poet, writer and sex columnist, talks of the importance of embracing art as a career and finding one’s voice.
A man on the street tears the gold
necklace from your mother’s neck—
this is how you learn that nothing
will belong to you. In your mangled
language, you’ll count all the reasons
you wish to die, the apartment bristling
with roaches.
– Erika L. Sánchez, “Girl”
Watch Erika L. Sánchez read some of her work at Bonk! Performance Art Series:
Sasaki, Fred 2015
Read this article about Fred Sasaki from The Chicago Reader:
Fred Sasaki, the poetry promoter – Chicago Reader
The People Issue: Fred Sasaki, associate editor of Poetry and founder of the annual Printers’ Ball
Watch Fred Sasaki read some of his work:
Smith, Maggie 2015
It doesn’t matter
if this river is listening. It’s not
from around here, and it’s not staying.
– Maggie Smith, “River”
Read this interview with Maggie Smith from Tupelo Quarterly:
Wise & Fierce Beauty: Maggie Smith’s The Well Speaks of its Own Poison
When I encountered Maggie Smith’s poetry manuscript The Well Speaks of its Own Poison, winner of Tupelo Press’ 2012 Dorset Prize, I knew, immediately, that I was in the presence of the real thing. There is wise, fierce, and truthful beauty here, the muscular craft to carry it across time and place, and both the […]
There are fish in the black trenches
of the sea that look like rocks.
Their poison shouldn’t trouble me.
– Maggie Smith, “Stonefish”
Watch this video adaptation of Maggie Smith’s poem “Good Bones”:
Shaw, Alix Anne 2015
low red door I enter in
the desert slaked by rain
in this a kind of format
an interstice a splice
between the sad time
and the next sad time
– Alix Anne Shaw, “Parturition”
Watch Alix Anne Shaw read her work:
My friends, the kind weather is over. On the street, I turn my eyes
from the men who wait at the corner, poised to pry the slightest
opening. The sign says please break boxes, but it looks like please
– Alix Anne Shaw, “Schrödinger’s Cat is Mine Now”
Sze, Arthur 1999
Meandering across a field with wild asparagus,
I write with my body the characters for grass,
water, transformation, ache to be one with spring.
– Arthur Sze, “Crisscross”
Read this interview with Arthur Sze from The Drunken Boat:
No Title
No Description
Redwinged blackbirds in the cattail pond–
today I kicked and flipped a wing
in the sand and saw it was a sheared
off flicker’s. Yesterday’s rain has left
– Arthur Sze, “Morning Antlers”
Watch Arthur Sze discuss the influence of American poetry in China as part of American Poets Abroad:
Arthur Sze: American Poets Abroad
No Description
Segal, Lore 1982
Friday, September 24, 1982
The doctors, nurses and patients in the overcrowded, too-brightly lit Emergency Room turned toward the commotion. It was the very old woman thrashing about her with improbable strength and agility. “You do not,” she shouted, “you do not tell me to relax! I will not relax.”
– Lore Segal, Half the Kingdom
Read this interview with Lore Segal from BOMB Magazine:
http://bombmagazine.org/article/2900/lore-segal
Watch Lore Segal read and discuss her work:
Lore Segal begins speaking at 4:30 minutes.
Schoen, Chris 2013
Watch the music video for “The Drag”:
Listen to Chris Schoen’s feature on WBEZ:
Poetry Of Failure Comes To Life At Chicago’s ‘Baudelaire In A Box’
This weekend in Chicago, a small theater troupe with a big resume will present all of the poems in Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” – sung by more than 50 performers from around the world.
Watch 80 Foots per Minute perform their song, “Cupid and the Skull:”
Cupid and the Skull from 80 Foots on Vimeo.
