Hello Family,
I have always been in awe of poets.
So many of them don’t require many words to cast their spells. They can fit entire universes in a sentence. They can articulate joys and hurts you thought couldn’t be articulated, you thought no one else ever knew about or experienced. They can rearrange reality and your mind in the process.
There is a common belief that poetry, like jazz, is a dying art form. I don’t have the data to determine how true that is (though, I have been coming across devastating testimonies about how technology is stealing our attention spans as well as our ability to be patient such that reading in general is a dying art form). I do know that it can be hard for a poet to sell their works (although, a few manage to break through according to mainstream metrics: Amanda Gorman, Rupi Kaur, Clint Smith, and Ocean Vuong, just to name a few). I do know that the poet’s contributions don’t seem to be as valued by the general public as it used to be back in the day—if sales indicate appreciation, that is. Well, there was the one time after 9/11 when poetry seemed to be in demand because it provided a particular kind of healing that people both did and didn’t know they needed. I remember the show Def Poetry was huge in the aftermath. Until it wasn’t.
Author Frederick Tiberius Joseph (his middle name isn’t really Tiberius, but I like to tease him, LOL!) talks about how, thanks, once again, to technology, the landscape of art production, including literature, has changed such that audiences/readers equate likes, follows, and shares with financial support. As nice as increased popularity is (actually, increased popularity isn’t nice at all), it isn’t the same as actually paying for an artist’s work. As a result of the confusion, many artists are unable to earn a living from their art because the expectation is that we should be giving it away for free (modern parlance: “exposure”)—which is the acceptable way of saying that the artist should be happy with their enslavement. The horrible consequences of this paradigm can be seen, felt, and heard in the continued decline in quality artistic output. In “demystifying” (which some folks call “democratizing”) art—which seemed like a good idea in theory—I think we have damaged rather than improved artistic conditions.
Getting back to poetry in particular, every time I hear about poetry’s impending death, I think about how a poem saw me, pulled me apart, put me together, and perhaps saved my life. If reading fiction is key to learning critical thinking and developing empathy, surely poetry must show us what it means to have a soul.
There are so many great poets that I think you should read. Rumi. Phillis Wheatley Peters. Langston Hughes. Lucille Clifton. Nikki Giovanni. Sonia Sanchez. Ntozake Shange. Nikky Finney. Yona Harvey. Terrence Hayes. Did you know James Baldwin was a poet, too? Yes, he was! And the list goes on.
The poetry I’m encouraging you to read this month, and every month, comes from seven poets (new legends if you will) with collections that I have never recommended before.
May these works open your hearts and minds. And soothe your pain.
The world would be so much less without art. So please support artists!
Happy National Poetry Month!
Blessings upon blessings,
Robert
“it ain’t enough ringing possible to let go
turn into glitter, into powder—here’s to well rounded
wound.”
The Collection Plate by Kendra Allen
“A deeply wrought and joyful debut poetry collection from an exciting new voice
Looping exultantly through the overlapping experiences of girlhood, Blackness, sex, and personhood in America, award-winning essayist and poet Kendra Allen braids together personal narrative and cultural commentary, wrestling with the beauty and brutality to be found between mothers and daughters, young women and the world, Black bodies and white space, virginity and intrusion, prison and freedom, birth and death. Most of all, The Collection Plate explores both how we collect and erase the voices, lives, and innocence of underrepresented bodies—and behold their pleasure, pain, and possibility
Both formally exciting and a delight to read, The Collection Plate is a testament to Allen’s place as the voice of a generation—and a witness to how we come into being in the twenty-first century.”
“Sure, I’ve been opened the way girls are opened.
Sure, I’ve gone missing in the dark.Sure, I’ve looked at my sister & seen a woman
caught in flames. But we have pills for that.We have money for pills for that.
//
Please—
what’s the word for being born of sorrow
that isn’t yours? For having a family?For belonging nowhere? Not even
your body. Especially not there.”
Sympathetic Little Monster by Cameron Awkward-Rich
“Through a combination of lyric, narrative, & fractured essay, Sympathetic Little Monster attempts to make a space & a shape for the little girl who haunts our cultural/ personal narratives about blackness & transmasculinity. As a trans coming-of-age text the work is intensely inward-focused, but it resists the imperative of linear autobiography. Instead, it uses the personal as a tool to explore what kind of thing a ‘self’ is, its relation to trauma & objectification, & its capacity to be multiple.”
“They say writing about the almost dead only gets harder.
My grandma sigh ‘pray for them baby.’
I think ‘my god! Is this the fight?
to be black and beautiful and breathing.’”
Chrome Valley by Mahogany Browne
“From Lincoln Center’s inaugural poet-in-residence comes this unflinching collection that intricately mines the experience of being a Black woman in America.
Boldly lyrical and fiercely honest, Mahogany L. Browne’s Chrome Valley offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. “We praise their names / & the hands that write / Praise the mouth that speaks,” she writes in tribute to those who came before her.
Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: “you ain’t had freedom / ’til you climb on bus 62 / & head to the closest mall / for a good seat at the girl fight.”
Reflections of Browne’s mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: “give me my mother’s bone structure / & her gap tooth slaughter / give me her spine—Redbone got a spine for the world.” Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: “Because Kadiatou Diallo / Because Sybrina Fulton / Because Valeria Bell / Because Mamie Till.”
The characters in Chrome Valley grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.”
“I can save my own life just as easily
As I can corrupt compounds of
Ripe silence with just a mouth—Drown it out of its own sound.
This is what makes me dangerouslyCompatible with death”
Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix
“This is about what grows through the wreckage. This is an anthem of survival and a look at what might come after. A view of what floats and what, ultimately, sustains.
Build Yourself a Boat redefines the language of collective and individual trauma through lyric and memory.”
“Is laughter until our abs hurt the reclamation
Of humanity? Should we find out? This way, brother.
Between the lines of their definition for masculine
Where we chuckle like children, until our cheeks hurt,
Build each other up, until our hands are calloused,
Voices rasp from being honest about our wounds.”
We Alive, Beloved by Frederick Joseph
“NYT Bestselling Author, Frederick Joseph, explores a new genre in this captivating poetry collection that seeks to find joy in moments of difficulty whether through illuminating the beauty of being Black, highlighting the hope that can be found in childhood, or by sharing intimate truths revealed on a mental health journey. This book will appeal to both new and established readers of poetry.
Step into the world of We Alive, Beloved, where its words will resonate within the deepest corners of your soul, leaving a mark on your heart and a renewed appreciation for the beauty of being alive.
We Alive, Beloved moves beyond being a poetry collection; it's a celebration of the profound aspects of our existence. Each poem seeks to immortalize the fleeting moments of joy, love, resilience, and inspiration that often slip through the grasp of our fast-paced lives.
In this poetic testament, we defy the ephemeral nature of beauty and goodness, daring to clutch onto these facets of life for just a little longer. With words that stand as guardians against the relentless march of time and the ceaseless tides of change, trauma, and grief, this collection becomes a sanctuary of light in a world that sometimes seems dim.
We Alive, Beloved explores a rich tapestry of themes, from the intricacies of relationships and the heartache of loss, to the wide-eyed wonder of existence and the challenges of exploring the possibility of parenthood in our modern age. Each poem reaches out to readers, offering a mirror to their own journeys and emotions, inviting them to be seen and acknowledged in its lyrical embrace.”
“Instead what I found were tips
on how to dress, pack my cock, achieve the ultimate in clone
perfection; how to cruise and lay and lose the gold-tressed,
virile god of every queer boy’s fantasies—but mine; bemoanthe arrival of one’s sexual autumn, the dying light
in the Pines or dunes of Provincetown; work a bathhouse or four—
and where they hunkered in every civilized metropole; popper,
coke and fist my way to true liberation”
Punks: New & Selected Poems by John Keene
A landmark collection of poetry by acclaimed fiction writer, translator, and MacArthur Fellow John Keene, Punks: New & Selected Poems is a generous treasury in seven sections that spans decades and includes previously unpublished and brand-new work. With depth and breadth, Punks weaves together historic narratives of loss, lust, and love. The many voices that emerge in these poems—from historic Black personalities, both familial and famous, to the poet's friends and lovers in gay bars and bedrooms—form a cast of characters capable of addressing desire, oppression, AIDS, and grief through sorrowful songs that "we sing as hard as we live." At home in countless poetic forms, Punks reconfirms John Keene as one of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.
“scooby doo was trying to tell us
something when every time that
monster mask got snatched off it
was a greedy white dude.”
Homie by Danez Smith
“Homie is Danez Smith’s magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family—blood and chosen—arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez’s friends and for you and for yours.”