REVIEW: REVENGE BODY – RACHEL WILEY (BUTTON POETRY)
These poems rip at the meat, bone, and marrow of aspects of the institution that has settled in the hearts and minds of our societal zeitgeist. – Melissa Ferrer
Perhaps we have all, as in the poem, lost someone and looked up, perceived heaven, and asked for a sign, a response, but were left only in our wonder. – Cait L. Young
Does drained looked good on me?
The pressures of life begin to sink in
And it’s like someone left the water running
Washing ourselves of the sins
But it feels like I’m taking a ho bath
– Reggie Johnson
The way the chips have fallen
Lays simple and plain
I have a duality of someone’s success is being someone else’s pain
– Reggie Johnson
Gotta be
Honest
My attitude
The fondest
Holding back?
Nothing’s promised
Sleeping on me
I’m an alarmist
– Reggie Johnson
For me it’s sink or swim
Too many people I extended branches
And gone out on a limb
The switch up is contagious
Many do it on a whim
– Reggie Johnson
These are poems that do not lend themselves to passive reading, but rather demand deep internal reflection and renewed engagement with the most basic, unanswerable questions of human existence. – Ronnie K. Stephens
Scheelk offers first-hand accounts of the effects of misdiagnosis, queer identity, and the intersections of these as an autistic person. – Caitie L. Young
Don’t give me material
If you’re reading this it’s too late
Don’t end up becoming one of my mistakes
– Reggie Johnson
The Body Myth (The Hunger Journal) by Hannah Land is beauty in words, harmonic sounds and striking imagery, all to narrate an all too familiar painful story. – Valentina Lindardi
Shutter is equally successful for its accessibility and relatability, centering poems that are at once concretely grounded in personal experience and immediately familiar to any reader who experiences self-doubt, heartbreak, and loneliness. – Ronnie K. Stephens
Get ready to submit your manuscripts! This year’s submissions are FREE; however, to make that happen we need your help!
At the end of the day
We ain’t seeing eye to eye
I swear I don’t see you crossing t’s
And I don’t see you dotting I’s
This only a percentage of this income
But we ain’t talking pies
She can hit that 3.14 stance
And I ain’t talking pi’s
– Reggie Johnson
Join Chris and Courtney in a sit down with Kristin Garth, the Editor in Cheif of Pink Plastic House, for a conversation about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
We can’t control the games people play
We just hope we don’t get played
And the sad part is when I did
At first I would’ve stayed
Then later I prayed
Prayed that I never be someone else’s prey
– Reggie Johnson
Join Chris in a one-on-one sit down with Shaindel Beers, Poetry Editor of Contrary, about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
Again and again, we see the speaker face the tension of negotiating and accepting who they are up against the self-limiting modes of the world they live in. – Steve Henn
Check my words
Check the diction
Best believe
Don’t want no friction
– Reggie Johnson
Each poem is a subtle reminder that those who experience mental illness are not alone. – Caitie L. Young
Join Chris & Courtney of The Poetry Question in a sit down with Julian Randall, author of Refuse (Pitt, 2018), Pilar Ramirez & the Escape from Zafa (Holt), and the upcoming The Dead Don’t Need Reminding: Essays (Bold Type Books), about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry.
I sometimes feel like I can’t fully represent any group. But maybe that’s a vehicle for art in and of itself: not to be boxed in, not to follow any prescribed norms for one culture. – Joan Kwon Glass
77 days into this year and I believe I’m making progress
Things have been a hard pill to swallow
However I managed to digest
Recycling old recounts and in the end I just digress
Told myself to focus more and worry less
Will lead to more success
– Reggie Johnson
His poems are full of the energy and playfulness and good humor of a poet who takes things thoughtfully but not too seriously. – Steve Henn
Join Chris and Courtney in a sitdown with Jason B. Crawford, author of Year of the Unicorn Kidz (Sundress Publications), about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
Done feeding off the anguish
This is not another anthem
This problem is continuous
This one time isn’t random
Done being the star of your show
Quit entertaining your fandom
Quit acting like a child
Stop doing your temper tantrums
– Reggie Johnson
Mar brings us to a past world, painted as vividly as ours, made of pretty words and tragic events that leave us feeling wet and sticky, as if the algae of the lake refuse to let us free from it. – Valentina Linardi
Join Chris and Courtney Margolin of The Poetry Question in a sitdown with Saeed Jones, author of Alive at the End of the World (Coffee House Press), about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
With a hint of irony she reminds us of all the rules we’ve been exposed to growing up, of the smallest signs we have to use every day to express ourselves in front of the societal expectations. – Valentina Linardi
Discussing you only as nouns
When the actions made you a verb
No review of you in my book
I’ll just remember you as blurb
– Reggie Johnson
This collection of life-flowers reminds us that life may be ordinary, but this ordinary may just be lovely enough to convince us that we want to be in it. – Melissa Ferrer
[This collection takes a] hard look at the challenges of existing in exile, of growing accustomed to the comforts of America, and of conflicting feelings around claiming a home to which the speaker cannot return. – Ronnie K. Stephens
“Whether through trauma endured in war, drug use, or poor living environment, Uttich pulls the reader into a leaving with traces of those absences”. – Catie L. Young
Join Chris of The Poetry Question in a one-on-one about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry with the author of Finna (Penguin Random House), Nate Marshall.
Not a care in the world
Learning about one’s self
Take what I know now
And protect myself and mental health
Protect my peace
Now I’m up here living with my life on a lease
– Reggie Johnson
Connotary is an incantation into remembrance. And an edification from where one has been and is always going. And still is also this gift, this display, of honor and renewal. – Melissa Ferrer
Join Chris & Courtney of The Poetry Question in a sit-down conversation with Joan Kwon Glass, author of Night Swim (Diode Editions), about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“The Science of Departures is the product of a poet whose words double as his hands, and there is so much to read – so much to feel”. – Lyra Taylor
Join Chris and Courtney in a sit down with Praise Osawaru, Contributing Editor at Barren Magazine, Reader for Chestnut review, and 1st place winner of the 2021 Valiant Scribe Poetry Prize.
IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!
The first of The Poetry Question’s 2021 Chapbook Contest winners has finally arrived! It is SEXYTIME by Lynne Schmidt!
Join Chris and Courtney of The Poetry Question as they sit down for a talk with Seema Reza about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“We love our families as hard as we can. We push forward. We learn languages that don’t lead us to shame because sometimes we “live in a perpetual state of I don’t know”. – Chris Margolin
Join Chris and Courtney of The Poetry Question in a sit down with Gabrielle Bates about passion, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“I was once told by an editor that I “don’t write real poetry”. How is this any different from people saying that Bennett had a mediocre arm”? – Chris L. Butler
“Grown Ocean is a collection about love as much as it is a collection of disenchantment with the world”. – Chris L. Butler
“They wanted to say my life was a wrap
So I started to rap
I was the gift of many Christmases
Wish I could take my presence back”
– Reggie Johnson
“[The reader is left to] examine whether or not there really is a “better” existence; or if we are all destined to simply live the life we’ve been given, and nothing more”. – Chris Margolin
“[There is a] willingness to engage space as a living entity, something that is at once incomprehensible and animate”. – Ronnie K. Stephens
They wouldn’t know about
What you and I have
And what I have going on with you
Listening to your wants and needs
Means someone got things to do
– Reggie Johnson
And we are most definitely not here to survive and die, but rather to survive within the noise, and then die. – Chris Margolin
“With life, there is loss. Yet it all feels wrong. One of the most jarring things about grief is not that the world moves on: it is that the world moves on so quickly and seamlessly”. – Whitney Hansen
I don’t want to sacrifice
Any more time
Because you are all in my memories
And the good that came from it was of you leaving me
– Reggie Johnson
These emotional trinkets become the void where sadness echoes. – Marisa Silva-Dunbar
KB recognizes the wound as equally capable of memorializing beautiful, if painful, memories. – Ronnie K. Stephens
Gibson’s version is more culturally responsive and inclusive, inviting discussion into the limitations of Whitman’s perceptions of the body, who determines the worth of specific bodies, and how society uses language to establish a hierarchy of humanity. – Ronnie K. Stephens
“Libeté is a play in three acts masquerading as a stream of consciousness poem. As the poet unspools her themes, the importance of performance and play takes center stage as a means to exploring the matter at hand: liberty. Freedom. Liberation. But not just any liberation, Libeté”. – Jeni De La O
Chris sits down with Darius Simpson, winner of the 2020 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, to talk about all things passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
Chris and Courtney sit down with Kazim Ali, Editor/Founder of Nightboat Books, and Department Chair for Literature at UC San Diego, about all things passions, process, pitfalls, poetry… and Choose Your Own Adventure!
Thank you for allowing us the ability to continue bringing you fresh content each week. We truly cannot do this without your support! – TPQ
“It took myself to see that I used to be one-note
Sometimes my actions didn’t match up when I spoke
It took a lot of time for me to dive deep when I wrote
So sink or swim when I go on a whim
I hope you able to float”
– Reggie Johnson
“It may be too niche at times, I’m sure, but overall I think its goals are the same as those without a tv show backdropped in it: to (maybe re)create characters and a world that describes how they live beside or with their sadness”. – Samantha Fain
Chris sits down with Alan Chazaro, author of Piñata Theory and This Isn’t a Frank Ocean Cover Album (Black Lawrence Press), to talk about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“I’m so sick of the inconsistencies
Like a minute ago you was digging me
Smitten me
How you fall in love and the next minute
You want to get rid of me?”
— Reggie Johnson
“The poetically crafted inner monologues of the Silver Surfer that must’ve entrapped my consciousness back then. I realize now he was a poet on this show”. – Chris L. Butler
Courtney and Chris sit down with Hannah Cohen, author of Year of the Scapegoat (coming Spring of ’22 from Glass Poetry), to talk about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“Together, the poems function a bit like a greatest hits album, showcasing the breadth of style and distinct humor for which Broder is known”. – Ronnie K. Stephens
“Because religion can be found inside a Walkman. Inside a radio song. A news segment. Because inside these personal stories and erasures of 2Pac lines, we find a refreshed and re-defined sense of The Word”. – Chris Margolin
Chris sits down with Patrick Roche, author of A Socially Acceptable Breakdown (Button Poetry), for a one-on-one conversation about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
If I could have one wish
we’d make up the whole constellation
The only shining star I need
To light up the night
– Reggie Johnson
“Stoked and Thrashing is a masterclass of sensory engagement in writing”. – Whitney Hansen
Chris and Courtney sit down with Ashley Elizabeth, author of You Were Supposed to be a Friend (Nightengale & Sparrow), for a conversation about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“By revisiting historical moments and paying respects to figures that came before her, the author shines light on the issues we still are dealing with today”. – Reggie Johnson
Join Courtney and Chris Margolin for a sit down with DeMisty D. Bellinger, author of Peculiar Heritage (Mason Jar Press), for a conversation about passions, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“Mai Der Vang masters contemporary poetic structures, grounds her verse in vivid and haunting imagery, and carries a central narrative throughout the collection”. – Ronnie K. Stephens