REVIEW: SWEET, YOUNG, AND WORRIED – BLYTHE BAIRD (BUTTON POETRY)
December 29, 2022
Baird truly pours her heart onto each page, and it can be felt beating in every single word. – Isabella Ciraco
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REVIEW: SYMMETRY OF FISH – SU CHO (PENGUIN BOOKS)
December 27, 2022
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)
December 27, 2022
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)
November 30, 2022
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
October 23, 2022
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
September 13, 2022
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)
August 29, 2022
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
August 26, 2022
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
August 23, 2022
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)
August 18, 2022
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)
August 3, 2022
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”
July 28, 2022
Rachel McKibbens “The Widower” captures students because it’s visceral, emotional, and refuses to be ignored. – Ronnie K. Stephens
REPLAYS: THE SIGN BY LIZZO
July 19, 2022
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)
June 29, 2022
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)
June 21, 2022
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
June 14, 2022
Order your copy of A.R. Salandy’s Half-Bred! Only 100 copies available!
REVIEW: BLOODFRESH BY EBONY STEWART (BUTTON POETRY)
February 22, 2022
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
August 16, 2021
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!
April 8, 2021
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
April 1, 2021
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)
March 9, 2021
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)
October 25, 2019
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
April 3, 2019
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
October 5, 2015
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.