REPLAYS: WE GOIN’ UP BY NICKI MINAJ & FIVIO FOREIGN
Check my words
Check the diction
Best believe
Don’t want no friction
– Reggie Johnson
Check my words
Check the diction
Best believe
Don’t want no friction
– Reggie Johnson
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
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!
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
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
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.
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!
Join Chris and Courtney of The Poetry Question in a sit down with Gabrielle Bates about passion, process, pitfalls, and poetry!
“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
“[There is a] willingness to engage space as a living entity, something that is at once incomprehensible and animate”. – 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
Butler uses a seamless combination of 90s pop culture and imagery with slick rhymes and beautiful sonic and tonal qualities. These are poems that demand to be performed on a stage and to be read studiously at your desk. The musicality he brings elevates the feeling of nostalgia into a full soundtrack; you can see the protagonist walking to their perfect theme song. – Alex Dang
Khalisa Rae sat down with Gabrielle Bates, poet, podcast host, educator, gorgeous-picture taker, and all-around good person.
Bloodwarm has the ability to turn heads, create conversation, and lead you toward change.
Because it’s not easy to discover your voice or yourself inside a world that doesn’t love you – or at least doesn’t love you back.
In each poem, readers can feel the undeniable aspect that, like nearly all mixtapes, this chapbook is for somebody (at the very least, the amalgamation of “you” that exists in all of our longings).
Didn’t know what depression felt like
Until I was nineteen
It took my crown and the jewels
And said it was fit to be king
Animals burn. Volcanos erupt. We aren’t told the story necessarily as it is; we are told how it feels to live and remember it.
REVIEW: GIRLS LIKE US – ELIZABETH HAZEN (ALAN SQUIRE PUBLISHING)
Hazen has an acute ability to make a reader feel many unwanted things. Like recollection. Like commiseration. Like retroactive fear.
REPLAYS: HEARTBREAK ANNIVERSARY – GIVEON
I love the emotion as his baritone voice accentuates the rawness and sincerity in its lyrics. The relatability of the song draws people in and you cannot help but sing along.
REVIEW: GHOST IN A BLACK GIRL’S THROAT – KHALISA RAE (RED HEN PRESS)
This is a rally cry for self-hood. For respect. For dreams once had that can be had again. This is written to give voice to the timid, a path to the promise of never again escaping the you who you always thought you could be.
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: BY BUS – ERICA VAN HORN (UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE)
You find yourself next to the man licking the eczema on his arm, or next to the singing bus driver. Some of the people you meet on the bus will be lovely; others will be objectionable.
white people, do not recognize the need for succor in Black women, as early as ZERO years old. Their screams (voiced concerns or cries for help) appear no more urgent or fearsome than the twinkling of Christmas lights
REVIEW: THE WORLD ISN’T THE SIZE OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ANYMORE – AUSTIN DAVIS (WEASEL PRESS)
It’s an age of transition, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, on the blurry path to independence.