Tag: art

REVIEW: SWEET, YOUNG, AND WORRIED – BLYTHE BAIRD (BUTTON POETRY)

Baird truly pours her heart onto each page, and it can be felt beating in every single word. – Isabella Ciraco

REVIEW: SYMMETRY OF FISH – SU CHO (PENGUIN BOOKS)

Su Cho’s The Symmetry of Fish is a summon into experience, adventure, loss, sadness, pain and enlightenment. – Michael Imossan

REVIEW: URBANSHEE BY SIAARA FREEMAN (BUTTON POETRY)

Siaara Freeman shrieks and wails, but she also knows when to pull back, when to whisper and when to let the blank space reverberate like the ghost of a storm – Ronnie K. Stephens

THE STUDY OF HUMAN LIFE – JOSHUA BENNETT (PENGUIN POETS)

Bennett has established himself as an intensely patient and deliberate writer capable of upending genre as seamlessly as he upends our understanding of the world. – Ronnie K. Stephens

TPQ20 – S4EP2: COURTNEY FAYE TAYLOR

Join Chris of The Poetry Question in conversation with Courtney Faye Taylor, author of Concentrate (Graywolf Press) and winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, about passions, process, pitfalls, and Poetry!

REPLAYS: OUTSIDE BY BRYSON TILLER

Luckily I clean it up well
Yeah prepare for the tide
Not a stain on me
We take off on our ride
– Reggie Johnson

REVIEW: A SHIVER IN THE LEAVES – LUTHER HUGHES (BOA EDITIONS)

His use of structure, rhythm and extended metaphor are among the best, and his particular utilization of the crow throughout A Shiver in the Leaves sets this debut apart as one of the most layered, complex collections of the year. – Ronnie K. Stephens

TALK TO ME: NOLCHA FOX

I love putting odd images together, playing with alternate definitions of words, twisting the end. My adult me is the one who figures out where to submit the glorious mess I make of a poem. – Nolcha Fox

REPLAYS: TOXIC BY YG

Dramamine because I’m sick of you
When patience ran thin
Where was thick for you?
What didn’t click for you?
– Reggie Johnson

REVIEW: LOTUS & THE APOCALYPSE – AUSTIN DAVIS (OUTCAST PRESS)

It’s a testament to all of us holding depression and joy in both hands, to everyone that has ever felt their world could end before the sun goes down. – Caitie L. Young

REVIEW: SO, STRANGER – TOPAZ WINTERS (BUTTON POETRY)

Winters offers a layered and thoughtful critique of the immigrant experience in America, the nuances of her relationship with her father and how borders operate in our lives. – Ronnie K. Stephens

SPEAK FREELY: MEANING AND METAPHOR IN RACHEL MCKIBBENS’ “THE WIDOWER”

Rachel McKibbens “The Widower” captures students because it’s visceral, emotional, and refuses to be ignored. – Ronnie K. Stephens

REPLAYS: THE SIGN BY LIZZO

Hey how you doing?
Are you getting tired yet?
I might forgive you
But I never forget
– Reggie Johnson

REVIEW: ALL THE BLOOD INVOLVED IN LOVE (HAYMARKET BOOKS)

Maya Marshall’s debut interrogates the current sociopolitical nature and its threat to reproductive rights, choice, and Blackness. – Caitie L. Young

REVIEW: ALL THE FLOWERS KNEELING – PAUL TRAN (PENGUIN POETS)

Paul Tran’s long-awaited debut collection, All the Flowers Kneeling, is a fierce reminder that Tran is one of the most talented and visceral poets writing in America today. – Ronnie K. Stephens

RELEASE DAY: HALF-BRED – ANTHONY SALANDY

Order your copy of A.R. Salandy’s Half-Bred! Only 100 copies available!

REVIEW: BLOODFRESH BY EBONY STEWART (BUTTON POETRY)

Stewart is at her best, masterfully blending her understanding of craft with her keen ear for orality to offer a collection readers will be talking about for years. – Ronnie K. Stephens

REPLAYS: OVER – DRAKE

The song served as a reintroduction for my love for writing. For the first time, I was able to combine my love for both music and writing together.

CHAPBOOK CONTEST: SUBMISSIONS OPEN!

CHAPBOOK CONTEST: SUBMISSIONS OPEN!

Submit your chapbook manuscripts to The Poetry Question! Guest Judges: Sofia Fey & Chris L. Butler.

BROWN STUDY: “SELF PORTRAIT AS A MERMAID OR DEAD GIRL” – GAIA RAJAN

BROWN STUDY: “SELF PORTRAIT AS A MERMAID OR DEAD GIRL” – GAIA RAJAN

I started thinking about who owns grief, how memory and grief affect the body, and soon enough, the poem turned into an elegy for someone I’ve lost.

REVIEW: THE MATRIX – N.H. PRITCHARD (PRIMARY INFORMATION and UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE)

REVIEW: THE MATRIX – N.H. PRITCHARD (PRIMARY INFORMATION and UGLY DUCKLING PRESS)

The collection is ultra-visual, a singing arrangement of offerings that has eyes of its own, old eyes that gaze at us from source, unblinking, revealing nothing (and everything). 

REVIEW: SELF-PORTRAIT – ELISABETH HORAN (CEPHALO PRESS)

REVIEW: SELF-PORTRAIT – ELISABETH HORAN (CEPHALO PRESS):
What do you do when you must lie on your back? When you can’t stand up for yourself – literally. You make the best of it. You create art like you’ve never created before.

POWER OF POETRY #35: “Dreams/Facts” – Matthew Mayfield

POWER OF POETRY #35: “Facts/Dreams” – Matthew Mayfield: “….I strive to be that ONE person who keeps you closer to Life and
one step away from the trigger.”

POWER OF POETRY #34: “Some Slightly Connected Thoughts on Crafted Vulnerability, Stage Fright, Beauty, and Gratitude” – STEVIE EDWARDS

I am trying to write poems that stand inside of uncertainty and still find things to praise. And I don’t think it matters if I praise my sore legs that keep walking me home from work each night, or if I praise the relief of night rain in my first Carolinian July, or if I praise an idea of a home I miss, or if I praise the mild infection in my right nipple for not being cancer, or if I praise my friend who has stomach cancer but keeps living beyond the rational limits doctors have suggested—it is all praising living. It is all beholding the terrible beautiful uncertainty of being human and saying thank you. I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful than gratitude, and poetry helps me to access it.