Get Lit Minute: Recent Episodes
Get Lit - Words Ignite
A weekly podcast focusing on all things poetic, poetry and poets. Each week we will feature a poet and their poem. We will be highlighting classic poets from our In-School Anthology, sharing brief bios on the poet and a spoken word reading of one of their poems. We will also be introducing contemporary poets from the greater poetry community and our own Get Lit poets into the podcast space.
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Korean American poet, translator, columnist, and advocate for bilingual artists, Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong. She is the author of four poetry collections featuring pieces in both English and Korean. Her first book, Generation One Point Five, was published in 1993 in Korean with English translations. Most recently, Hong released The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora with KYSO Flash Press in 2019. Grounded in the true stories of Korean “comfort women,” the more than 200,000 women forced into sexual slavery by opposing forces during World War II, Hong’s first-person poems seek to recenter the voices of Korean and Korean-American women in the narrative of their own history.
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Second Period”, featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“Second Period”I got called in to a little dark room,
windowless.
Mrs. Lopez showed me a picture book.
Khang, I say.
No, river, she says.
Liver, I say.
Not liver, it’s river, she says.
That’s what I said, river, river, river, khang—
It’s a khang!
She shook her head.
Look at my mouth, she says, RRRRR
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
River.
River, I said.
Then shut my mouth.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Lawson Fusao Inada. A third-generation Japanese American, his collections of poetry are Before the War: Poems as They Happened (1971); Legends from Camp (1992), winner of the American Book Award; Just Into/Nations (1996); and Drawing the Line (1997). Both jazz and the experience of internment are influences in Inada’s writing. The section titles of his Legends from Camp reveal these ongoing concerns: Camp, Fresno, Jazz, Oregon, and Performance. Inada edited the anthology Only What We Carry: The Japanese Internment Experience (2000), a major contribution to the record of the Japanese American experience. He narrated the PBS documentaries Children of the Camps and Conscience and Constitution and is featured in the video What It Means to Be Free: A Video About Poetry and Japanese American Internment and the animated film Legends from Camp, made with his son Miles Inada. One of his poems is inscribed on a stone at the Japanese American Historical Plaza in Portland, Oregon. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, “Healing Gila”. You can find more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org .
“Healing Gila” for The People
The people don't mention it much.
It goes without saying,
it stays without saying—
that concentration camp
on their reservation.
And they avoid that massive site
as they avoid contamination—
that massive void
punctuated by crusted nails,
punctured pipes, crumbled
failings of foundations . . .
What else is there to say?
This was a lush land once,
graced by a gifted people
gifted with the wisdom
of rivers, seasons, irrigation.
The waters went flowing
through a network of canals
in the delicate workings
of balances and health . . .
What else is there to say?
Then came the nation.
Then came the death.
Then came the desert.
Then came the camp.
But the desert is not deserted.
It goes without saying,
it stays without saying—
wind, spirits, tumbleweeds, pain.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, librarian, and memorist, Toyo Suyemoto. During her early years, Suyemoto published under her husband’s surname as Toyo Kawakami, Toyo S. Kawakami, and Toyo Suyemoto Kawakami, though later in life she preferred to be remembered only by her family name. Suyemoto was trained from an early age to be a poet. Her mother taught Japanese literature to her and her eight siblings as children, and also recited Japanese translations of Shakespeare. Suyemoto’s own work in haiku and tanka is the direct result of her mother’s influence, though she was also worked in conventional English lyric forms. Suyemoto herself began publishing poems in Japanese American community papers when she was a teenager, and she continued writing during her years of incarceration as a young woman in Topaz. During her lifetime, Suyemoto published a reference book for librarians, Acronyms in Education and the Behavioral Sciences, as well as poems in Yale Review, Common Ground and the anthology American Bungaku (1938). Interest in her work increased in the 1970s and 80s, however, and Suyemoto’s work soon appeared in the anthologies Speaking for Ourselves: American Ethnic Writing (1969), Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology (1980), and Quiet Fire: A Historical Anthology of Asian American Poetry 1892-1970 (1996) as well as in the magazines Many Mountains Moving and Amerasia Journal. Four years after her death in 2003, Rutgers University Press published her memoir I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto’s Years of Internment (2007). Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Barracks Home". You can find more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org .
"Barracks Home"This is our barracks, squatting on the ground,
Tar papered shacks, partitioned into rooms
By sheetrock walls, transmitting every sound
Of neighbor's gossip or the sweep of brooms
The open door welcomes the refugees,
And now at least there is no need to roam
Afar: here space enlarges memories
Beyond the bounds of camp and this new home.
The floor is carpeted with dust, wind-borne
Dry alkalai, patterned with insect feet,
What peace can such a place as this impart?
We can but sense, bewildered and forlorn,
That time, disrupted by the war from neat
Routines, must now adjust within the heart.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, writer, and activist, Alice Walker. Her books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “How Poems are Made / A Discredited View” featured in our 2021, 2022, and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“How Poems are Made / A Discredited View”Letting go
In order to hold one
I gradually understand
How poems are made.
There is a place the fear must go.
There is a place the choice must go.
There is a place the loss must go.
The leftover love.
The love that spills out
Of the too full cup
And runs and hides
Its too full self
In shame.
I gradually comprehend
How poems are made.
To the upbeat flight of memories.
The flagged beats of the running
Heart.
I understand how poems are made.
They are the tears
That season the smile.
The stiff-neck laughter
That crowds the throat.
The leftover love.
I know how poems are made.
There is a place the loss must go.
There is a place the gain must go.
The leftover love.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Claude McKay. He was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. His philosophically ambitious fiction, including tales of Black life in both Jamaica and America, addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, which McKay found central to the Black individual’s efforts to cope in a racist society. He is the author of The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose (1973), The Dialectic Poetry of Claude McKay (1972), Selected Poems (1953), Harlem Shadows (1922), Constab Ballads (1912), and Songs of Jamaica (1912), among many other books of poetry and prose. McKay has been recognized for his intense commitment to expressing the challenges faced by Black Americans and admired for devoting his art and life to social protest, and his audience continues to expand. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, “I Know My Soul” featured in our 2022 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“I Know My Soul”I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,
To see it like a star against the sky,
A twitching body quivering in space,
A spark of passion shining on my face.
And I explored it to determine why
This awful key to my infinity
Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.
And if the sign may not be fully read,
If I can comprehend but not control,
I need not gloom my days with futile dread,
Because I see a part and not the whole.
Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted
By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, filmmaker, educator and performer, Fatimah Asghar. Their work has appeared in many journals, including POETRY Magazine, Gulf Coast, BuzzFeed Reader, The Margins, The Offing, Academy of American Poets and many others. Their work has been featured on new outlets like PBS, NPR, Time, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, and others. In 2011, they created a spoken word poetry group in Bosnia and Herzegovina called REFLEKS while on a Fulbright studying theater in post-genocidal countries. They are a member of the Dark Noise Collective and a Kundiman Fellow. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-Nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Their debut book of poems, If They Come For Us, was released One World/ Random House, August 2018. Along with Safia Elhillo, they are the editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender nonconforming and/or trans. Source
This episode includes a reading of their poem, “If They Come for Us” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“If They Come for Us”these are my people & I find
them on the street & shadow
through any wild all wild
my people my people
a dance of strangers in my blood
the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind
bindi a new moon on her forehead
I claim her my kin & sew
the star of her to my breast
the toddler dangling from stroller
hair a fountain of dandelion seed
at the bakery I claim them too
the Sikh uncle at the airport
who apologizes for the pat
down the Muslim man who abandons
his car at the traffic light drops
to his knees at the call of the Azan
& the Muslim man who drinks
good whiskey at the start of maghrib
the lone khala at the park
pairing her kurta with crocs
my people my people I can’t be lost
when I see you my compass
is brown & gold & blood
my compass a Muslim teenager
snapback & high-tops gracing
the subway platform
Mashallah I claim them all
my country is made
in my people’s image
if they come for you they
come for me too in the dead
of winter a flock of
aunties step out on the sand
their dupattas turn to ocean
a colony of uncles grind their palms
& a thousand jasmines bell the air
my people I follow you like constellations
we hear glass smashing the street
& the nights opening dark
our names this country’s wood
for the fire my people my people
the long years we’ve survived the long
years yet to come I see you map
my sky the light your lantern long
ahead & I follow I follow
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Carolyn Forché. Coiner of the term “poetry of witness,” she is frequently characterized as a political poet; she calls for poetry to invest in the “social.” She published her first book of poetry, Gathering the Tribes, in 1975. Forché received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship after translating the work of Salvadoran-exiled poet Claribel Algería in 1977; the fellowship enabled her to work as a human rights advocate in El Salvador. She has published five books of poetry and the 2019 memoir What You Have Heard Is True. Her work is often described as “devastating” due to its searing honesty and unflinching accounting of travesties. Forché has been given various awards in recognition of her work on behalf of human rights and the preservation of culture and memory.
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “The Boatman” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“The Boatman”We were thirty-one souls all, he said, on the gray-sick of sea
in a cold rubber boat, rising and falling in our filth.
By morning this didn’t matter, no land was in sight,
all were soaked to the bone, living and dead.
We could still float, we said, from war to war.
What lay behind us but ruins of stone piled on ruins of stone?
City called “mother of the poor” surrounded by fields
of cotton and millet, city of jewelers and cloak-makers,
with the oldest church in Christendom and the Sword of Allah.
If anyone remains there now, he assures, they would be utterly alone.
There is a hotel named for it in Rome two hundred meters
from the Piazza di Spagna, where you can have breakfast under
the portraits of film stars. There the staff cannot do enough for you.
But I am talking nonsense again, as I have since that night
we fetched a child, not ours, from the sea, drifting face-
down in a life vest, its eyes taken by fish or the birds above us.
After that, Aleppo went up in smoke, and Raqqa came under a rain
of leaflets warning everyone to go. Leave, yes, but go where?
We lived through the Americans and Russians, through Americans
again, many nights of death from the clouds, mornings surprised
to be waking from the sleep of death, still unburied and alive
but with no safe place. Leave, yes, we obey the leaflets, but go where?
To the sea to be eaten, to the shores of Europe to be caged?
To camp misery and camp remain here. I ask you then, where?
You tell me you are a poet. If so, our destination is the same.
I find myself now the boatman, driving a taxi at the end of the world.
I will see that you arrive safely, my friend, I will get you there.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Joy Harjo. She is the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States and a member of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Harjo began writing poetry as a member of the University of New Mexico’s Native student organization, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empowerment movements. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry, including her most recent, the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019), which was a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award Winner; Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association; and In Mad Love and War (1990), which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. Harjo performs with her saxophone and flutes, solo and with her band, the Arrow Dynamics Band, and previously with Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice. Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums including Winding Through the Milky Way, for which she was awarded a NAMMY for Best Female Artist of the year. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Perhaps the World Ends Here” featured in our 2024 Get Lit Anthology.
“Perhaps the World Ends Here”The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, writer, and scholar, Lateef McLeod. He published his first poetry book entitled A Declaration of A Body Of Love in 2010 chronicling his life as a black man with a disability and tackling various topics on family, dating, religion, spirituality, his national heritage and sexuality. He also published another poetry book entitled Whispers of Krip Love, Shouts of Krip Revolution this year in 2020. He currently is writing a novel tentatively entitled The Third Eye Is Crying. In 2019 he started a podcast entitled Black Disabled Men Talk with co-hosts Leroy Moore, Keith Jones, and Ottis Smith. Source
This episode includes a reading by Mason Granger of McLeod's poem, “I Am Too Pretty For Some Ugly Laws” featured in our 2021 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“I Am Too Pretty For Some Ugly Laws”I am not suppose to be here
in this body,
here
speaking to you.
My mere presence
of erratic moving limbs
and drooling smile
used to be scrubbed
off the public pavement.
Ugly laws used to be
on many U.S. cities’ law books,
beginning in Chicago in 1867,
stating that “any person who is
diseased, maimed, mutilated,
or in any way deformed
so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object,
or an improper person to be allowed
in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares,
or public places in this city,
shall not therein or thereon
expose himself to public view,
under the penalty of $1 for each offense.”
Any person who looked like me
was deemed disgusting
and was locked away
from the eyes of the upstanding citizens.
I am too pretty for some Ugly Laws,
Too smooth to be shut in.
Too smart and eclectic
for any box you put me in.
My swagger is too bold
to be swept up in these public streets.
You can stare at me all you want.
No cop will buss in my head
and carry me away to an institution.
No doctor will diagnose me
a helpless invalid with an incurable disease.
No angry mob with clubs and torches
will try to run me out of town.
Whatever you do,
my roots are rigid
like a hundred-year-old tree.
I will stay right here
to glare at your ugly face too.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, W.E.B. Du Bois. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, civil rights activist, and historian. Throughout his career, Du Bois was a founder and editor of many groundbreaking civil rights organizations and literary publications, such as The Niagara Movement and its Moon Illustrated Weekly and The Horizon periodicals, as well as the hugely influential National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its monthly magazine The Crisis. An adamant socialist and peace activist, his writing for these journals was pointedly anti-capitalist, anti-war, and pro-women’s suffrage, on top of his core pursuit of the dismantling of systemic racism and discrimination. Possessing a large and hugely influential body of work, Du Bois is perhaps most notably the writer of the authoritative essay collection The Souls of Black Folks (1903) and his monumental work Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 (1935). Du Bois never stopped fighting for and evolving his beliefs, joining the Community Party at the age of 93.
This episode includes a reading by Austin Antoine of Du Bois' poem, “The Song of Smoke” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
“The Song of Smoke”I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am swinging in the sky,
I am wringing worlds awry;
I am the thought of the throbbing mills,
I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,
Wraith of the ripple of trading rills;
Up I’m curling from the sod,
I am whirling home to God;
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
I am the Smoke King,
I am black!
I am wreathing broken hearts,
I am sheathing love’s light darts;
Inspiration of iron times
Wedding the toil of toiling climes,
Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes—
Lurid lowering ’mid the blue,
Torrid towering toward the true,
I am the Smoke King,
I am black.
I am the Smoke King,
I am black!
I am darkening with song,
I am hearkening to wrong!
I will be black as blackness can—
The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!
For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.
I am daubing God in night,
I am swabbing Hell in white:
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am cursing ruddy morn,
I am hearsing hearts unborn:
Souls unto me are as stars in a night,
I whiten my black men—I blacken my white!
What’s the hue of a hide to a man in his might?
Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands—
Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Page Lewis. Their poetry collections include Logically, I Know the Circus (2021), When I Tell My Husband I Miss the Sun, He Knows (2019), and You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I’ve Made Today Warm (2018).
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of international touring Chicana poet and teaching artist, Angélica María Aguilera. She comes from a mixed family of immigrants and uses spoken word to rewrite the narrative of what it means to be Mexican, woman, and American. Her work has appeared in publications such as Button Poetry, the Breakbeat Poets Anthology LatiNext among others. Aguilera is the author of "Dolorosa" on Pizza Pie Press and "America As She." Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “A Star Spanglish Banner” featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"A Star Spanglish Banner"
Oh say can you see
Miguel wants to learn the Star-Spangled Banner.
Miguel was the last fourth grader to migrate
into my English as a second language course,
and is the first to raise his hand for every question.
But Miguel views letters in a different way than most.
Because there are a lot of words in Spanish
that do not exist in English,
he learns how to pack them in a suitcase and forget.
Because many phrases translate backwards
when crossing over from Spanish to English,
throughout the whole song,
he tends to say things in the wrong order.
So when I ask him to sing the second verse,
it sounds like
And the rocket's red glare
We watched our home
Bursting in air
It gave proof to the night
that the flag was still theirs
They say music is deeply intertwined with how we remember.
Miguel hears the marimba and learns the word home,
hears his mother's accent being mocked and learns the words shame,
hears his mother's weeping and learns the word sacrifice.
He asks, what does the word America mean?
What does the word dream mean?
I say two words with the same meaning are what we call synonyms.
You could say America is a dream,
something we all feel silly for believing in.
He says, teach me.
Teach me how to say bandera.
Teach me how to say star.
Teach me how to hide my country behind the consonants
that do not get pronounced.
Miss Angelica,
teach the letters to just flee from my lips like my parents,
and build a word out of nothing.
In my tongue, we do not pronounce the letter H.
Home is not a sound my voice knows how to make.
It's strange what our memories hold on to.
It's strange what makes it over the border
to the left side of the brain,
what our minds do not let us forget,
how an accent is just a mother tongue
that refuses to let her child go.
The language barrier is a 74 mile wall
lodged in the back of Miguel's throat,
the bodies of words so easily lost in the translation.
Oh, say for whom does that
star-spangled banner yet wave
Give back the land to the brave
and let us make a home for us free.
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In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we spotlight the accomplished author, poet and educator, José Olivarez.
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. He is the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods. In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Source
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In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we spotlight the accomplished writer and poet, Rigoberto González.
Rigoberto González was born in Bakersfield, California and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. He is the author of several poetry books, including The Book of Ruin (2019); Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award; and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (1999), a National Poetry Series selection. He has also written two bilingual children’s books, Antonio’s Card (2005) and Soledad Sigh-Sighs (2003); the novel Crossing Vines (2003), winner of ForeWord Magazine’s Fiction Book of the Year Award; a memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006), which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; and the book of stories Men without Bliss (2008). He has also written for The National Book Critics Circle's blog, Critical Mass; and the Poetry Foundation's blog Harriet. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, and the PEN/Voelcker Award, González writes a Latino book column for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is contributing editor for Poets & Writers, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers. González is a professor of English and director of the MFA Program in creative writing at Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in New York City. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, “Birthright” featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"Birthright"
in the village
of your birth
cuts a wall
bleeds a border
in the heat
you cannot swim
in the rain
you cannot climb
in the north
you cannot be
cuts a paper
cuts a law
cuts a finger
finger bleeds
baby hungers
baby feeds
baby needs
you cannot go
you cannot buy
you cannot bring
baby grows
baby knows
bordercrossing
seasons bring
winter border
summer border
falls a border
border spring
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Li-Young Lee. He is the author of The Undressing (W. W. Norton, 2018); Behind My Eyes (W. W. Norton, 2008); Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; The City in Which I Love You (BOA Editions, 1990); and Rose (BOA Editions, 1986). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, “A Story” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
"A Story"Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can't come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Alma Flor Ada. She has devoted her life to advocacy for peace by promoting a pedagogy oriented to personal realization and social justice. Alma Flor’s numerous children’s books of poetry, narrative, folklore, and non-fiction have received prestigious awards. Her professional books for educators, include: A Magical Encounter: Latino Children’s Literature in the Classroom and, co-authored with F. Isabel Campoy: Authors in the Classroom: A Transformative Education Process, Initial Spanish Literacy: Strategies for Young Learners and Está linda la mar: Para comprender y usar la poesía en la clase. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Bilingual” featured in our 2022-23 Get Lit Anthology.
“Bilingual”Because I speak Spanish
I can listen to my grandmother’s stories
and say familia, madre, amor.
Because I speak English
I can learn from my teacher
and say I love school.
Because I am bilingual
I can read libros and books,
I have amigos and friends,
I enjoy canciones and songs,
juegos and games,
and have twice as much fun.
And someday,
because I speak two languages,
I will be able to do twice as much,
to help twice as many people
and be twice as good in what I do.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Agha Shahid Ali. His poetry collections include Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals (W. W. Norton, 2003), Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), and Bone Sculpture (1972). He is also the author of T. S. Eliot as Editor (1986), translator of The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1992), and editor of Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, “Stationery” featured in our 2022-23 Get Lit Anthology.
“Stationery”The moon did not become the sun.
It just fell on the desert
in great sheets, reams
of silver handmade by you.
The night is your cottage industry now,
the day is your brisk emporium.
The world is full of paper.
Write to me.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Marty McConnell. Her second poetry collection, "when they say you can't go home again, what they mean is you were never there," won the 2017 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and is forthcoming in 2018 on Southern Indiana University Press. Her first nonfiction book, “Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop,” was recently published by YesYes Books. She is the co-creator and co-editor of underbelly, a web site focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. She is also the author of wine for a shotgun, (EM Press). In 2009, she launched Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell” featured in our Get Lit Anthology.
“Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell”
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. She is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005); and 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997). Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished?" featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished?"When you quietly close
the door to a room
the room is not finished.
It is resting. Temporarily.
Glad to be without you
for a while.
Now it has time to gather
its balls of gray dust,
to pitch them from corner to corner.
Now it seeps back into itself,
unruffled and proud.
Outlines grow firmer.
When you return,
you might move the stack of books,
freshen the water for the roses.
I think you could keep doing this
forever. But the blue chair looks best
with the red pillow. So you might as well
leave it that way.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Asian American poet, Sally Wen Mao. She is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), and the debut fiction collection Ninetails (Penguin Books). She is also the author of two previous poetry collections, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), and Mad Honey Symposium(Alice James Books, 2014). Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "The Belladonna of Sadness." check out more poems by her featured in our Get Lit Anthology.
"The Belladonna of Sadness"Spring in Hell and everything’s blooming.
I dreamt the worst was over but it wasn’t.
Suppose my punishment was fields of lilies sharper than razors, cutting up fields of lies.
Suppose my punishment was purity, mined and blanched.
They shunned me only because I knew I was stunning.
Then the white plague came, and their pleas were like a river.
Summer was orgiastic healing, snails snaking around wrists.
In heat, garbage festooned the sidewalks.
Old men leered at bodies they couldn’t touch
until they did. I shouldn’t have laughed but I laughed
at their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow.
Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for dead
at the castle door. Then I robbed the castle and kissed my captor,
my sadness, learned she was not a villain. To wake up in this verdant field,
to watch the lilies flay the lambs. To enter paradise,
a woman drinks a vial of amnesia. Found in only the palest
flowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinky
flower and access its truest aroma, you have to let its stigma show.
You have to let the pollen sting your eyes until you close them.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Guatelombian (Guatemalan-Colombian) American poet and screenwriter, Melissa Lozada-Oliva. Her book peluda (Button Poetry 2017) explores the intersections of Latina identity, feminism, hair removal & what it means to belong. Her novel-in-verse Dreaming of You is about bringing Selena back to life through a seance & the disastrous consequences that follow & it’s coming out October 2021 on Astra House. She is the co-host of podcast Say More with Olivia Gatwoodwhere they dissect the world through a poetic lens. Lozada-Olivia is currently working on a pilot about a haunted book store. She is interested in horror because she’s scared of everything. Lozada-Olivia likes when things are little funny so that she has space to be a little sad. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in REMEZCLA, PAPER, The Guardian, BreakBeat Poets, Kenyon Review, Vulture, Bustle, Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and BBC Mundo! Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "The Women in My Family Are Bitches," featured in our Get Lit Anthology.
"The Women in My Family Are Bitches"
cranky! bitches
stuck up! bitches
customer service turned sour! bitches.
can i help you? bitches
next in line! bitches
i like this purse 'cause it makes me look mean bitches
can you take a picture of my outfit? full length!
get the shoes in! bitches
i always wear heels to la fiesta! and i never take
them off! bitches
all men will kill you! bitches
all men will leave you anyway! bitches
you better text me when you get home okay! bitches
pray before the plane takes off! bitches
pray before the baby comes! bitches
she has my eyes my big mouth, my fight! bitches
sing to the scabs on her knees when she falls
down! bitches
give abuelita bendiciones! bitches
it's okay not to be liked! bitches
on our own til infinity! bitches
the vengeful violent
pissed prissed and polished
lipstick stained on an envelope,
i'll be damned if i'm compliant! bitches
the what did you call us?
what did you say to us?
what's that kind of love called again?
bitches!
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Danusha Laméris. She is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House Press, 2014), selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Small Kindnesses," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"Small Kindnesses"I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead — you first," "I like your hat."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Camonghe Felix. She is the author of Build Yourself a Boat (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry. The 2013 winner of the Cora Craig Award for Young Women, Felix has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Thank God I Can't Drive," featured in our 2021/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"Thank God I Can't Drive"My brain is trying so hard to outrun this.
It is doing more work than the lie.
I could go to jail for anything. I look like that
kind of girl. I only speak one language. I am
of prestige but can’t really prove it. Not if
my hands are tied. Not if my smartphone is
seized. Not if you can’t google me. Without
an archive of human bragging rights, I’m
[ ] nobody, an empty bag, two-toned
luggage. I’m not trying to be sanctimonious,
I just found out that I’m afraid to die, like,
there goes years of posturing about, beating it
like I own it, taking it to the bathroom with
the tampons—like, look at me, I am so agent
and with all this agency I can just deploy
death at any time. The truth is
that I’m already on the clock, I’m just a few
notches down on the “black-girl-with-bad
mouth” list, the street lights go out and I’m
just at the mercy of my own bravery and
their punts of powerlessness, their “who
the hell do you think you are’s?”
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Anis Mojgani. He is the author of five books of poetry. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in journals Bat City Review, Rattle, Buzzfeed Reader, Thrush, and Forklift Ohio, amongst others. His latest book is In the Pockets of Small Gods. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget," featured in our 2021/23 Get Lit Anthology.
Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget.Love me stupid.
Love me terrible.
And when I am no
mountain but rather
a monsoon of imperfect
thunder love me. When
I am blue in my face
from swallowing myself
yet wearing my best heart
even if my best heart
is a century of hunger
an angry mule breathing
hard or perhaps even
hopeful. A small sun.
Little & bright.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Nuyorican poet, Tato Laviera. Shifting between English and Spanish in his poetry, Laviera addresses themes of immigration, history, and transcultural identity. Laviera was the author of several collections of poetry, including La Carreta Made a U-Turn (1979), AmeRícan (1985), Mainstream Ethics (Etica corriente) (1988), and Mixturao and Other Poems (2008). He also wrote more than a dozen plays, including King of Cans, which premiered in 2012 at New York’s Red Carpet Theater. Laviera lived in New York, and dealt with diabetes and blindness until his death in 2013. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "my graduation speech," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"my graduation speech"i think in Spanish
i write in English
i want to go back to puerto rico,
but i wonder if my kink could live
in ponce, mayagüez and carolina
tengo las venas aculturadas
escribo en spanglish
abraham in español
abraham in english
tato in spanish
"taro" in english
tonto in both languages
how are you?
¿cómo estás?
i don't know if i'm coming
or si me fui ya
si me dicen barranquitas, yo reply,
"¿con qué se come eso?"
si me dicen caviar, i digo,
"a new pair of converse sneakers."
ahí supe que estoy jodío
ahí supe que estamos jodíos
english or spanish
spanish or english
spanenglish
now, dig this:
hablo lo inglés matao
hablo lo español matao
no sé leer ninguno bien
so it is, spanglish to matao
what i digo
¡ay, virgen, yo no sé hablar!
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Nate Marshall. He is an award-winning writer, editor, educator, and MC. His most recent book, Finna, was recognized as one of the best books of 2020 by NPR and The New York Public Library. He was also an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Marshall co-wrote the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks with Eve Ewing. He also wrote the audio drama Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis, Esq. Marshall records hip-hop as a solo artist and with the group Daily Lyrical Product. He co-wrote Chicago Public School's first literary arts curriculum and develops lesson plans using creative writing to help participants discuss social justice, mental health, community development, and other issues. Nate loves his family, friends, Black people, dope art, literature, history, comedy, arguing about top 5 lists, and beating you in spades. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Out South," a response to the last two lines of Robert Frost's "Out, Out."
"Out South"
… And they, since they
were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
— Robert Frost, “Out, Out”
In Chicago, kids are beaten. they crack
open. they're pavement. they don't fight, they die.
bodies bruised blue with wood. cameras catch
us killing, capture danger to broadcast
on Broadways. we Roseland stars, made players
for the press. apes caged from 1st grade until.
shake us. we make terrible tambourines.
packed into class, kids passed like kidney stones.
each street day is unanswered prayer for peace,
news gushes from Mom's mouth like schoolboy blood.
Ragtown crime don't stop, only waves—hello.
crime waves break no surface on news—goodbye.
every kid that's killed is one less free lunch,
a fiscal coup. welcome to where we from.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Wang Ping. She is poet, writer, photographer, performance and multimedia artist. Her publications have been translated into multiple languages and include poetry, short stories, novels, cultural studies, and children's stories. Her multimedia exhibitions address global themes of industrialization, the environment, interdependency, and the people. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Things We Carry On The Sea."
"Things We Carry On The Sea"
We carry tears in our eyes: good-bye father, good-bye mother
We carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our hearts
We carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats
We carry scars from proxy wars of greed
We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides
We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds
We carry our islands sinking under the sea
We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new life
We carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other shore
We carry railroads, plantations, laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…built on our ancestors’ backs
We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests
We carry yesterday, today and tomorrow
We’re orphans of the wars forced upon us
We’re refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes
And we carry our mother tongues
爱(ai)，حب (hubb), ליבע (libe), amor, love
平安 (ping’an), سلام ( salaam), shalom, paz, peace
希望 (xi’wang), أمل (’amal), hofenung, esperanza, hope, hope, hope
As we drift…in our rubber boats…from shore…to shore…to shore…
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Daphne Gottlieb, who stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the award-winning author of ten other books including the new collection of short stories, Pretty Much Dead. Previous works include Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words, a collection of letters from Death Row by the “first female serial killer” to her childhood best friend. She is also the author of five books of poetry, editor of two anthologies, and, with artist Diane DiMassa, the co-creator of the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious. She has relentlessly toured coast to coast, headlining solo tours as well as appearing with Hal Sirowitz, Lydia Lunch, and Maggie Estep. She has appeared at SXSW, Bumbershoot, and LadyFest Bay Area, and her poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in more than 50 anthologies. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Sexy Balaclava”. Check out more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology.
"Sexy Balaclava"I tried to rent the movie
about the protest,
but the store didn’t have it.
In the film, the underdog wins.
That’s how you know
it’s a movie.
They are passing a law here
to keep people from sitting
on the sidewalk.
Poverty is still a crime in America
And I am looking more and more
criminal, by which I mean
broke, by which
I mean beautiful.
Holy. Revolution
is not pretty,
but it can be
beautiful, I’m told.
The protest was dull.
There was no tear gas
and there were no riot cops.
Nothing got broken
and nothing got gassed
and nothing got smashed.
There was no blood
and the world was not saved
so we went to the movies.
In the film,
people kissed
at the end.
The underdog won.
That’s how we knew it was a movie,
a pretty lie.
Revolution
is not pretty
but I don’t care
about looks.
Set the dumpster
on fire. Break
the windows.
Don’t kiss me
like they do
in the movies.
Kiss me
like they do
on the emergency
broadcast news.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Tarfia Faizullah. She is the author of two poetry collections, REGISTERS OF ILLUMINATED VILLAGES (Graywolf, 2018) and SEAM (SIU, 2014). Tarfia’s writing appears widely in the U.S. and abroad in the Daily Star, Hindu Business Line, BuzzFeed, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Poetry Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, the New Republic, the Nation, Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket, 2019), and has been displayed at the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Tarfia’s writing is translated into Bengali, Persian, Chinese, and Tamil, and is part of the theater production Birangona: Women of War. Tarfia’s collaborations include photographers, producers, composers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists, resulting in several interdisciplinary projects, including an EP, Eat More Mango. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Self-Portrait as Slinky”, featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
“Self-Portrait as Slinky”It’s true I wanted
to be beautiful before
authentic. Say the word
exotic. Say minority—
a coiled, dark curl
a finger might wrap
itself in—the long
staircase, and I was
the momentum
of metal springs
descending down
and down,
a tension
—the long staircase,
and I was a stacked series
of spheres finger-tipped
again into motion—say
taut, like a child
who must please
the elders and doesn’t
know how, a curl pulled
thin. I wanted to be
a reckoning, to tornado
into each day’s hard
hands, that wanton
lurching forward
in the dark, another
soaked black ringlet,
that sudden halting
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Olivia Gatwood. She has received international recognition for her poetry, writing workshops, and work as a Title IX Compliant educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery. Olivia's performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, Sundance Film Festival, Lambda Literary, and The Missouri Review, among others. She is the author of two poetry collections, NEW AMERICAN BEST FRIEND and LIFE OF THE PARTY. She is the co-writer of the film THE GOVERNESSES alongside director Joe Talbot (The Last Black Man in San Francisco). Her debut novel, WHOEVER YOU ARE, HONEY, will be released in 2023. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Ode to the Women on Long Island”. Check out more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology.
Ode to the Women on Long Island
I want to write a poem
for the women on Long Island who
when I show them the knife I carry in my purse
tell me it’s not big enough
Who are waitresses and realtors and massage therapists and social workers and housewives
and tell me they wish they would have been artists
“but life comes fast ya know?
One minute you’re taking typing classes for your new secretary job in the World Trade Center and the next it’s almost over
Life, I mean
but I kicked and screamed my way through it and so will you
I can tell by the way you walk
One more thing—when they call you a bitch, say, ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. Her work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “A Guide to Reading Trans Literature”. See more of her work in our Get Lit Anthology.
“A Guide to Reading Trans Literature”
We’re dying and we’re really sad.
We keep dying because trans women
are supposed to die.
This is sad.
I don’t have the words for my body
so I’ll say I’m a cloud
or a mountain
or something pretty that people enjoy
so if I die
people will be like “Oh, that’s sad”.
Be sad about that.
It’s okay to be sad.
It is sad when people die.
It is sad when people want to die.
I sometimes want to die but I don’t!
I’m one of the lucky ones.
You can feel happy about that.
It’s okay to feel happy about that.
Now pretend this is very serious:
History doesn’t exist.
My body doesn’t exist.
There’s nothing left for you to be complicit in.
It’s okay for you to feel happy about that.
Now pretend I am crying
right in front of you,
opening that wound up just for you.
Now pretend you can feel my pain.
Now pretend something in you
has been moved, has been transformed.
Now pretend you are absolved.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, author, visual artist, and musician, Shira Erlichman. Her poems explore recovery – of language, of home, of mind. Her poetry book Odes to Lithium centers around her experiences with mental illness. Her picture book Be/Hold: A Friendship Book uses compound words to illuminate what is possible when we come together. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed Reader, The Rumpus, PBS NewsHour’s Poetry Series, The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times, among others. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Mind Over Matter", featured in our 2022 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
"Mind Over Matter"I tried. But mind over matter is a joke. The mind
is matter. Someone’s unprofessional opinion
was to “relax” over matter. To sandcastle over
wave. They aimed to clean up a murder scene
from behind a plate of glass. It was my murder.
Mine. As if I could possess the firegrief that
possessed me. Wrestle the wind to the floor for
daring enter my house. But it’s just me down
there, gripping my shoulders, threatening my
own heart. Have you ever seen the dark split
into two peaches? Sickness is a lot like that.
To the uninitiated it looks like fruit. Wise, shiny,
certifiably cherry. Do you mind if I die while I
say it? Rot that my teeth met: my fault. Would it
matter if I tried while I died? Will you relax
the coffin into the soil? If you don’t have blood
on your hands by the end of this you weren’t
listening.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Stephen Dunn. He has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing. Dunn's books of poetry include Lines of Defense (W. W. Norton, 2014); Different Hours (2000); Local Time (1986); and Looking For Holes In the Ceiling (1974). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Sweetness". See more of his work in our Get Lit Anthology.
"Sweetness"
Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....
Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care
where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Matthew Dickman. Dickman is the author of three full length collections, All American Poem, Mayakovsky's Revolver (W.W. Norton & Co, 2012), and Wonderland (W.W. Norton & Co, 2017); and co-author, with Michael Dickman, of 50 American Plays (Copper Canyon, 2012), and Brother (Faber & Faber, 2016). He is also the author of four chapbooks: 24 Hours (Poor Claudia, Portland & onestar press, Paris, 2014), Wish You Were Here (Spork Press, 2013), Amigos (Q Ave. Press, 2007), and Something About a Black Scarf (Azul Press, 2008). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Slow Dance."
"Slow Dance"More than putting another man on the moon,
more than a New Year’s resolution of yogurt and yoga,
we need the opportunity to dance
with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance
between the couch and dinning room table, at the end
of the party, while the person we love has gone
to bring the car around
because it’s begun to rain and would break their heart
if any part of us got wet. A slow dance
to bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two people
rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.
It’s a little like cheating. Your head resting
on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.
Your hands along her spine. Her hips
unfolding like a cotton napkin
and you begin to think about how all the stars in the sky
are dead. The my body
is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,
Stairway to Heaven, power-cord slow dance. All my life
I’ve made mistakes. Small
and cruel. I made my plans.
I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.
The slow dance doesn’t care. It’s all kindness like children
before they turn four. Like being held in the arms
of my brother. The slow dance of siblings.
Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,
one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,
and when he turns to dip me
or I step on his foot because we are both leading,
I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.
The slow dance of what’s to come
and the slow dance of insomnia
pouring across the floor like bath water.
When the woman I’m sleeping with
stands naked in the bathroom,
brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit
into the sink. There is no one to save us
because there is no need to be saved.
I’ve hurt you. I’ve loved you. I’ve mowed
the front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dress
covered in a million beads
comes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,
I take her hand in mine. I spin her out
and bring her in. This is the almond grove
in the dark slow dance.
It is what we should be doing right now. Scrapping
for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutang slow dance.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Mojave American poet, Natalie Diaz. She is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Manhattan is a Lenape Word". See more of her work in our Get Lit Anthology.
"Manhattan is a Lenape Word"It is December and we must be brave.
The ambulance’s rose of light
blooming against the window.
Its single siren-cry: Help me.
A silk-red shadow unbolting like water
through the orchard of her thigh.
Her, come—in the green night, a lion.
I sleep her bees with my mouth of smoke,
dip honey with my hands stung sweet
on the darksome hive.
Out of the eater I eat. Meaning,
She is mine, colony.
The things I know aren’t easy:
I’m the only Native American
on the 8th floor of this hotel or any,
looking out any window
of a turn-of-the-century building
in Manhattan.
Manhattan is a Lenape word.
Even a watch must be wound.
How can a century or a heart turn
if nobody asks, Where have all
the natives gone?
If you are where you are, then where
are those who are not here? Not here.
Which is why in this city I have
many lovers. All my loves
are reparations loves.
What is loneliness if not unimaginable
light and measured in lumens—
an electric bill which must be paid,
a taxi cab floating across three lanes
with its lamp lit, gold in wanting.
At 2 a.m. everyone in New York City
is empty and asking for someone.
Again, the siren’s same wide note:
Help me. Meaning, I have a gift
and it is my body, made two-handed
of gods and bronze.
She says, You make me feel
like lightning. I say, I don’t ever
want to make you feel that white.
It’s too late—I can’t stop seeing
her bones. I’m counting the carpals,
metacarpals of her hand inside me.
One bone, the lunate bone, is named
for its crescent outline. Lunatus. Luna.
Some nights she rises like that in me,
like trouble—a slow luminous flux.
The streetlamp beckons the lonely
coyote wandering West 29th Street
by offering its long wrist of light.
The coyote answers by lifting its head
and crying stars.
Somewhere far from New York City,
an American drone finds then loves
a body—the radiant nectar it seeks
through great darkness—makes
a candle-hour of it, and burns
gently along it, like American touch,
an unbearable heat.
The siren song returns in me,
I sing it across her throat: Am I
what I love? Is this the glittering world
I’ve been begging for?
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Armenian American poet, Diana Der-Hovanessian. She is the author of more than 25 books of poetry and translations. Her poems have appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, Ararat, CSM, Poetry, Partisan, Prairie Schooner, Nation, etc., and in anthologies such as Against Forgetting, Women on War, On Prejudice, Finding Home, Leading Contemporary Poets, Orpheus and Company, Identity Lessons, Voices of Conscience, Two Worlds Walking, etc. Among the several plays written by DDH, two (The Secret of Survival and Growing Up Armenian) were produced and in 1984 and 1985 traveled to many college campuses in the 80s telling the Armenian story with poetry and music. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Shifting the Sun", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
"Shifting the Sun"When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses. May you inherit
his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, 陳琛 / Chen Chen. How work includes Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency andWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities. Chen is also the author of four chapbooks and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God. His work appears/is forthcoming in many publications, including Poem-a-Day and three editions of The Best American Poetry. With a brilliant team, he edits the journal, Underblong. With Gudetama the lazy egg, he edits the lickety~split. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Self-Portrait as a Wild Extrovert", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
"Self-Portrait as a Wild Extrovert"I have 600 dear friends.
I hug each of them
daily. I never need a mint
but am always ready to offer one
or 600. I love & know a lot
about biking/baking. I love & know
a lot about Celine Dion,
thanks to my mom, who is, if I
absolutely had to pick one—but
who am I kidding, of course
she’s my best friend.
Once, every five years, I might
feel a smidge of sadness.
& when I do, I just
sit down, maintaining impeccable,
approachable posture, & breathe.
I breathe like the very well-
organized, very wall-less
ad agency I’ve run
since birth. I breathe
like breathing is my oldest
dear friend named Daphne
Daphne, whom I still call every night
before bed to say, You are
an incandescent multiverse—don’t you
forget it, & that never
fails to do the trick.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Leila Chatti. She is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), on the longlist for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and the chapbooks Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Tea", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
"Tea"Five times a day, I make tea. I do this
because I like the warmth in my hands, like the feeling
of self-directed kindness. I’m not used to it—
warmth and kindness, both—so I create my own
when I can. It’s easy. You just pour
water into a kettle and turn the knob and listen
for the scream. I do this
five times a day. Sometimes, when I’m pleased,
I let out a little sound. A poet noticed this
and it made me feel I might one day
properly be loved. Because no one is here
to love me, I make tea for myself
and leave the radio playing. I must
remind myself I am here, and do so
by noticing myself: my feet are cold
inside my socks, they touch the ground, my stomach
churns, my heart stutters, in my hands I hold
a warmth I make. I come from
a people who pray five times a day
and make tea. I admire the way they do
both. How they drop to the ground
wherever they are. Drop
pine nuts and mint sprigs in a glass.
I think to care for the self
is a kind of prayer. It is a gesture
of devotion toward what is not always beloved
or believed. I do not always believe
in myself, or love myself, I am sure
there are times I am bad or gone
or lying. In another’s mouth, tea often means gossip,
but sometimes means truth. Despite
the trope, in my experience my people do not lie
for pleasure, or when they should,
even when it might be a gesture
of kindness. But they are kind. If you were
to visit, a woman would bring you
a tray of tea. At any time of day.
My people love tea so much
it was once considered a sickness. Their colonizers
tried, as with any joy, to snuff it out. They feared a love
so strong one might sell or kill their other
loves for leaves and sugar. Teaism
sounds like a kind of faith
I’d buy into, a god I wouldn’t fear. I think now I truly believe
I wouldn’t kill anyone for love,
not even myself—most days
I can barely get out of bed. So I make tea.
I stand at the window while I wait.
My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds.
I do the small thing I know how to do
to care for myself. I am trying to notice joy,
which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Victoria Chang. Her collections of poetry include Circle (2005); Salvinia Molesta (2008); The Boss (2013); and Barbie Chang (2017). Her poems have been published in the Kenyon Review, Poetry, the Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry 2005. Chang is the editor of the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (2004). Source
This episode includes a reading of an excerpt from her poem, "Orbit", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
Excerpt from "Obit" [Blame]Blame—wants to die but cannot. Its
hair is untidy but it’s always here. My
mother blamed my father. I blamed my
father’s dementia. My father blamed
my mother’s lack of exercise. My
father is the story, not the storyteller.
I eventually blamed my father because
the story kept on trying to become the
storyteller. Blame has no face. I have
walked on its staircase around and
around, trying to slap its face but only
hitting my own cheeks. When some
people suffer, they want to tell everyone
about their suffering. When the brush
hits a knot, the child cries out loud,
makes a noise that is an expression of
pain but not the pain itself. I can’t feel
the child’s pain but some echo of her
pain, based on my imagination. Blame
is just an echo of pain, a veil across
the face of the one you blame. I blame
God. I want to complain to the boss of
God about God. What if the boss of
God is rain and the only way to speak
to rain is to open your mouth to the sky
and drown?
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, CA Conrad. They write poems in which stark images of sex, violence, and defiance build a bridge between fable and confession. They are the author of nine books of poetry and essays, including their latest book JUPITER ALIGNMENT: (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals (Ignota Books, 2020) and While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books). A documentary about their work, The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films), is viewable online on their website.
This episode includes a reading of their poem, "Glitter in my Wounds".
"Glitter in my Wounds"
first and most important
dream our missing friends forward
burn their reflections into empty chairs
we are less bound by time than the clockmaker fears
this morning all I want is to follow where the stone angels point
birdsong lashing me to tears
heterosexuals need to see our suffering
the violent deaths of our friends and lovers
to know glitter on a queer is not to dazzle but to
unsettle the foundation of this murderous culture
defiant weeds smashing up through cement
you think Oscar Wilde was funny
well Darling I think he was busy
distracting straight people
so they would not kill him
if you knew how many times I
have been told you’re not like my
gay best friend who tells me
jokes and makes me laugh
no I sure as fuck am not
I have no room in my life to
audition for your pansy mascot
you people can’t kill me and
think you can kill me again
I met a tree in Amsterdam and
stood barefoot beside it for twenty
minutes then left completely restored
yet another poem not written by a poet
sometimes we need one muscle to
relax so the others follow
my friend Mandy calls after a
long shift at the strip club to say
while standing in line for death I am
fanning my hot pussy with your new book
will you sign it next week my fearless faggot sister
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop was a perfectionist who did not write prolifically, preferring instead to spend long periods of time polishing her work. She published only 101 poems during her lifetime. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "One Art", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
"One Art"
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Sara Borjas. Her debut collection of poetry, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff was published by Noemi Press in 2019. Her work can be found in Ploughshares, The Rumpus, Poem-a-Day by The Academy of American Poets, Alta and The Offing, amongst others. She digs oldiez, outer space, aromatics, and tiny prints is about decentering whiteness in literature, creative writing, and daily life. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Lies I Tell", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"Lies I Tell"
A woman has a window in her face: that is the truth. I look like my mother: that is the truth. I want to tell you I am not like her: that is the truth. I am ashamed walking in a woman’s body: that is the truth. I wish to take back everything I say: that is the truth. A window can be a mirror. It can also be a door: that is the truth. As a girl, my mother slept in a shack with no windows and one door: that is the truth. My grandma would slam windows: truth. A mother’s hands are stronger than God: truth. We often use fruit to describe a bruise, like plum or blackberry: truth. My mother’s window blackberried: truth. My mother’s door peached: truth. She loves peaches: that is the truth. My father could not stand them in our house: that is the truth. We had three doors and nine windows in our house: that is the truth. A woman has a face in her window: truth. A father has a window but I don’t know where it is: truth. What burrows is the peach fuzz, he said: that is the truth. I have never been close enough to a peach to eat one: truth. The worst things last on the skin: truth. I don’t like not having things: truth. My father has one door but I can’t find it: truth. Not all windows open: that is the truth. One night I see my father crying in the yard, head in his hands: that is the truth. I make things up that I want for myself: that is the truth.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Ada Limón. She is the author of five poetry collections, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her fourth book Bright Dead Things was named a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Source
This episode includes a reading of an excerpt from her poem, "A New National Anthem". See more work by Ada Limón featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"A New National Anthem"
The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National
Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good
song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets
red glare” and then there are the bombs.
(Always, always, there is war and bombs.)
Once, I sang it at homecoming and threw
even the tenacious high school band off key.
But the song didn’t mean anything, just a call
to the field, something to get through before
the pummeling of youth. And what of the stanzas
we never sing, the third that mentions “no refuge
could save the hireling and the slave”? Perhaps,
the truth is, every song of this country
has an unsung third stanza, something brutal
snaking underneath us as we blindly sing
the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands
hoping our team wins. Don’t get me wrong, I do
like the flag, how it undulates in the wind
like water, elemental, and best when it’s humbled,
brought to its knees, clung to by someone who
has lost everything, when it’s not a weapon,
when it flickers, when it folds up so perfectly
you can keep it until it’s needed, until you can
love it again, until the song in your mouth feels
like sustenance, a song where the notes are sung
by even the ageless woods, the short-grass plains,
the Red River Gorge, the fistful of land left
unpoisoned, that song that’s our birthright,
that’s sung in silence when it’s too hard to go on,
that sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving
into another’s, that sounds like a match being lit
in an endless cave, the song that says my bones
are your bones, and your bones are my bones,
and isn’t that enough?
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Tyree Daye. He is the author of two poetry collections River Hymns and Cardinal. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Learning Whitney", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"Learning Whitney"My father loved my mama
quiet. She never was.
Sang as she dusted,
Whitney was her back-up singer.
He’d disappear, stumble in,
bright blues still in his mouth.
I come from a family of men
who thought saying I love you
was something you saved for sleep or the dead
and tears could get your ass whooped.
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Traci Brimhall. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and New England Review, among others. Some of her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Best of the Net, PBS Newshour, and Best American Poetry 2013 & 2014. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Oh Wonder", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"Oh Wonder"It’s the garden spider who eats her mistakes
at the end of day so she can billow in the lung
of night, dangling from an insecure branch
or caught on the coral spur of a dove’s foot
and sleep, her spinnerets trailing radials like
ungathered hair. It’s a million pound cumulus.
It’s the stratosphere, holding it, miraculous. It’s
a mammatus rolling her weight through dusk
waiting to unhook and shake free the hail.
Sometimes it’s so ordinary it escapes your notice—
pothos reaching for windows, ease of an avocado
slipping its skin. A porcelain boy with lamp-black
eyes told me most mammals have the same average
number of heartbeats in a lifetime. It is the mouse
engine that hums too hot to last. It is the blue whale’s
slow electricity—six pumps per minute is the way
to live centuries. I think it’s also the hummingbird
I saw in a video lifted off a cement floor by firefighters
and fed sugar water until she was again a tempest.
It wasn’t when my mother lay on the garage floor
and my brother lifted her while I tried to shout louder
than her sobs. But it was her heart, a washable ink.
It was her dark’s genius, how it moaned slow enough
to outlive her. It is the orca who pushes her dead calf
a thousand miles before she drops it or it falls apart.
And it is also when she plays with her pod the day
after. It is the night my son tugs at his pajama
collar and cries: The sad is so big I can’t get it all out,
and I behold him, astonished, his sadness as clean
and abundant as spring. His thunder-heart, a marvel
I refuse to invade with empathy. And outside, clouds
groan like gods, a garden spider consumes her home.
It’s knowing she can weave it tomorrow between
citrus leaves and earth. It’s her chamberless heart
cleaving the length of her body. It is lifting my son
into my lap to witness the birth of his grieving.
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Tommye Blount. He is the author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue (Four Way Books, March 2020) and the chapbook What Are We Not For (Bull City Press, 2016). Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "The Pedestrian", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"The Pedestrian"When the pickup truck, with its side mirror,
almost took out my arm, the driver’s grin
reflected back; it was just a horror
show that was never going to happen,
don’t protest, don’t bother with the police
for my benefit, he gave me a smile—
he too was startled, redness in his face—
when I thought I was going, a short while,
to get myself killed: it wasn’t anger
when he bared his teeth, as if to caution
calm down, all good, no one died, ni[ght, neighbor]—
no sense getting all pissed, the commotion
of the past is the past; I was so dim,
he never saw me—of course, I saw him
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of a highly esteemed performing poet, Sekou Sundiata. He wrote for print, performance, music and theater. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Shout Out", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"Shout Out"Here’s to the best words
In the right place
At the perfect time to the human mind
Blown-up and refined.
To long conversations and the
Philosophical ramifications of a beautiful day.
To the twelve-steppers
At the thirteenth step
May they never forget
The first step.
To the increase, to the decrease
To the do, to the do
To the did to the did
To the do to the did
To the done done
To the lonely.
To the brokenhearted.
To the new, blue haiku.
Here’s to all or nothing at all.
Here’s to the sick, and the shut-in.
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
To the crazy
The lazy
The bored
The ignored
The beginners
The sinners
The losers
The winners.
To the smooth
And the cool
And even to the fools.
Here’s to your ex-best-friend.
To the rule-benders and the repeat offenders.
To the lovers and the troublers
The engaging
The enraging
To the healers and the feelers
And the fixers and the tricksters
To a star falling from a dream.
To a dream, when you know what it means.
To the bottom
To the root
To the base, uh, boom!
To the drum
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
Here’s to somebody within the sound of your voice this morning.
Here’s to somebody who can’t be within the sound of your voice tonight.
To a low-cholesterol pig sandwich smothered in swine without the pork.
To a light buzz in your head
And a soundtrack in your mind
Going on and on and on and on and on like a good time.
Here’s to promises that break by themselves
Here’s to the breaks with great promise.
To people who don’t wait in the car when you tell them to wait in the car.
Here’s to what you forgot and who you forgot.
Here’s to the unforgettable.
Here’s to the was you been to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
Here’s to the hip-hoppers
The don’t stoppers
Heads nodding in the digital glow
Of their beloved studios.
To the incredible indelible impressions made by the gaze as you gaze in the faces of strangers.
To yourself you ask: Could this be God? Straight up!
Or is it a mask?
Here’s to the tribe of the hyper-cyber
Trippin’ at the virtual-most outpost at the edge on the tip
Believin’ that what they hear is the mothership
Drawing near.
Here’s to the was you been, to the is you in
To what’s deep and deep, to what’s down and down
To the lost, and the blind, and the almost found.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and spoken-word artist, Saul Williams. He has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. Most recently, Williams’ released his latest music works entitled, Encrypted & Vulnerable (July 2019), which acts as the score to his forth-coming directorial debut musical, Neptune Frost. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "Indigo On", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"Indigo On"
…and you don’t stop
and you don’t stop
and you don’t…
stop letting cities define you
confine you to that which is cement and brick
we are not a hard peoples
our domes have been crowned
with the likes of steeples
that which is our being soars with the eagles
and the Jonathan Livingston Seagulls
yes, I got wings
you got wings
alas God chillun got wings.
So lets widen the circumference of our nest
And escape this urban incubator
The wind plays the world like an instrument
Blows through trees like flutes
But trees don’t grow in cement
And as heart beats bring percussion
Fallen trees bring repercussions
Cities play upon our souls like broken drums
We drum the essence of creation from city slums
But city slums mute our drums
And our drums become hum drum
‘cause city slums
have never been where our drums are from
just the place where our daughters and sons
become offbeat heartbeats
slaves to city streets
where hearts get broken
when heart beats stop
broken heartbeats become breakbeats
for niggas to rhyme on top
but they rhyme about nothing
they don’t have nothing to rhyme about
‘cause they’ve never seen the moon
your styles can’t be universal
if your not intoned with the wind.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of American poet and spoken-word artist, Dr. Eve L. Ewing. She is a sociologist of education and a writer from Chicago. She is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection 1919 and the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "I come from the fire city.", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
"I come from the fire city."i come from the fire city / fire came and licked up our houses,
lapped them up like they were nothing / drank them like the last
dribbling water from a concrete fountain / the spigot is too hot to
touch with your lips be careful / fire kissed us and laughed / and
even now the rust climbs the walls, red ivy / iron fire and the brick
blossoms florid / red like stolen lipstick ground down to a small
flat earth / stand on any corner of the fire city, look west to death
/ the red sun eats the bungalows / the fire city children watch
with their fingers in their mouths / to savor the flaming hots or
hot flamins or hot crunchy curls or hot chips / they open the fire
hydrants in the fire city and lay dollar store boats in the gutters /
warrior funeral pyres unlit
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of American poet and spoken-word artist, Natasha Trethewey. A former US poet laureate, Trethewey is the author of five collections of poetry: Monument (2018), Thrall (2012), Native Guard (2006), Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002), and Domestic Work (2000). She is also the author of a book of creative non-fiction: Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010). Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Imperatives for Carrying On in the Aftermath”, featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
“Imperatives for Carrying On in the Aftermath”Do not hang your head or clench your fists
when even your friend, after hearing the story,
says: My mother would never put up with that.
Fight the urge to rattle off statistics: that,
more often, a woman who chooses to leave
is then murdered. The hundredth time
your father says, But she hated violence,
why would she marry a guy like that?—
don’t waste your breath explaining, again,
how abusers wait, are patient, that they
don’t beat you on the first date, sometimes
not even the first few years of a marriage.
Keep an impassive face whenever you hear
Stand by Your Man, and let go your rage
when you recall those words were advice
given your mother. Try to forget the first
trial, before she was dead, when the charge
was only attempted murder; don’t belabor
the thinking or the sentence that allowed
her ex-husband’s release a year later, or
the juror who said, It’s a domestic issue—
they should work it out themselves. Just
breathe when, after you read your poems
about grief, a woman asks: Do you think
your mother was weak for men? Learn
to ignore subtext. Imagine a thought-
cloud above your head, dark and heavy
with the words you cannot say; let silence
rain down. Remember you were told
by your famous professor, that you should
write about something else, unburden
yourself of the death of your mother and
just pour your heart out in the poems.
Ask yourself what’s in your heart, that
reliquary—blood locket and seed-bed—and
contend with what it means, the folk-saying
you learned from a Korean poet in Seoul:
that one does not bury the mother’s body
in the ground but in the chest, or—like you—
you carry her corpse on your back.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of American poet and spoken-word artist, Nicole Sealey. Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. Her chapbook, The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016), was the winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Object Permanence”, featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.
“Object Permanence”
(for John)We wake as if surprised the other is still there,
each petting the sheet to be sure.
How have we managed our way
to this bed—beholden to heat like dawn
indebted to light. Though we’re not so self-
important as to think everything
has led to this, everything has led to this.
There’s a name for the animal
love makes of us—named, I think,
like rain, for the sound it makes.
You are the animal after whom other animals
are named. Until there’s none left to laugh,
days will start with the same startle
and end with caterpillars gorged on milkweed.
O, how we entertain the angels
with our brief animation. O,
how I’ll miss you when we’re dead.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your favorite poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet Evie Shockley.
“because there should be love”
there should be love poems. iridescent odes to skies
and their fluid, mutating blues, their restless canvases
where we cast the adjectives—brilliant, dark, deep, clear—
that name our daily moods, ringing doubt and delight,
confusion and cheer, the brave lines we spit to spin
out the re-newed story of two lives winding themselves
into joy. there should be lyrics that hit all the notes—do,
mi, sol—in the scale, that belt them out as they arrive—
passionate, pushy, pulsating, unpredictable—breathing
the whole—billie, abbey, ella—range of the torchlit heart.
there should be love poems, star-sprung stanzas that try
out the rough ballad of two lives lifting themselves
higher together than apart: that sing it: breaking relief.
each waking, that the hours are ours to share: certainty
that silver-lines even cumulonimbus ire: the your hand
in my hand in your hand of right now, and from now on.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of American poet and spoken-word artist, Angel Nafis. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics, 2012). Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, MUZZLE Magazine, The Rumpus, Poetry magazine, and elsewhere*.
“Woo Woo Roll Deep”*it’s not just me. Be clear,
the whole squad Woo Woo. Kin
stay lifted up in metal clouds. Or
knuckle deep in earth. Talking
about how they periods right
around the corner and what that means
alongside Chani’s latest Mercury read.
Shira can’t wait to tell you
about the dream she had.
Big eyes growing wider at each detail.
Freaked out and charged at the spirit’s hooks
deep in her brain’s knowing signal.
It all connected. Courtney paints
one wall miss-my-daddy red
in every new home she stays in.
Morgan say she wants to find love
this year, keeps a rose quartz between
her tits. Gio the 3rd grade teacher
in Bed-Stuy use to end her emails
‘bet you love could make it better.’
A week after the 314th police killing this
year, Jenna mixes up a tincture of charcoal,
lemon, and lavender in little spray bottles.
Hands them out to us after burgers in Harlem.
Woo Woo. Jozie got her man’s EKGs tatted
on her ring finger. 3 years since he crossed
and you best believe she correct when she
talk about him in the present-tense. Gerloni
keeps a frothy pot of black eyed peas boiling
on News Years day. Marlee staves off the yeast
with a garlic clove in her puss. You can’t tell us
shit. We always down for the miracle.
The regular-as-fuck dawn making brand new
the farm of our hearts. Jessie, the filmmaker
slash jewelry maker slash teaching-artist, dangles
a dried out tea bag above her nose, gapes
intently at this new face of God appearing
right before her like, isn’t this just
the most beautiful thing
you’ve ever seen?
Read more at our anthology.
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In this week's episode of The Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Harryette Mullen, a poet and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Mullen has said, “writing became important to me when I was very young. It was the only way I could communicate with my father after my parents were divorced. My mother believed in educating ‘the whole child.’ She made sure my sister and I always had books to read, and she somehow found money to pay for music and dance lessons. She also encouraged us to draw and write. My sense of poetry was awakened by the formal and informal, written and oral rhymes and rhythms of family, church, and school.”
“We Are Not Responsible”
We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.
We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions.
We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations.
In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on.
Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments.
If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.
In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself.
Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle
your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we
are unable to find the key to your legal case.
You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile.
You are not presumed to be innocent if the police
have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet.
It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color.
It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights.
Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude.
You have no rights we are bound to respect.
Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible
for what happens to you.
Read more about Mullen and her work at http://getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/77/
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Puerto Rican writer, Wille Perdomo. He is the author of The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets, 2014), a National Book Critics Circle Awards finalist, Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (W. W. Norton & Company, a Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award finalist, 1996),[1] Postcards of El Barrio (Isla Negra Press, 2002), and Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax Press, 2003),[2] which received a PEN Beyond Margins Award.[3] His children's book, Visiting Langston, received the Coretta Scott King Honor. Perdomo was also the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 2001 and 2009.
“Bad Habits”
Petey liked to twist the right end of his mustache when he was
listening for updates. (Y’all remember Petey. He was always
on that chuck chill-out tip, but most days he didn’t get
to choose.)
When he ignited a squabble, Chuna would slap his right thigh to
get every syllable out with a violent scansion.
Tommy Lee threw rocks at unsuspecting pigeons.
Dwight kept his right hand tucked into the crotch of his Lees,
steady stunting on some bollo.
Angel bit his tongue when he wanted to ask a question.
Max counted his money and his money counted him.
Brother Lo liked to whistle “All the Things You Are” when it
rained that Puerto Rico rain.
Chee-wa’s nose used to break out into an anxious table of
contents when he was skied up.
Papu would dance if he wanted to make a point. So, imagine
him saying, Nah, nah, nah, fuck that shit, and poppin’ &
lockin’ on every word.
Nestor hated the words Stop, I was only playing.
Loco Tommy blinked three times, convulsively, and then tapped
the right side of his face against his right shoulder blade.
Jujo spit and spit and spit and spit.
Popeye had a villainous laugh.
Dre loved to crash revivals.
Chino Chan did back handsprings from sewer to sewer
whenever he received good news.
Georgie could scratch his ankle straight through a
graveyard shift.
The first thing out of Skinicky’s mouth was always a feeling.
Learn more about Perdomo and read the full poem "Bad Habits" via our Get Lit Anthology.
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In the latest episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight John Murillo, the author of the poetry collection Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010, Four Way Books 2020. Learn more about Murillo and discover his other poems by visiting our Virtual Anthology.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we feature the life and work of American Poet Jamaal May. Born and raised in Detroit, May's first book, Hum (2013), won a Beatrice Hawley Award and an American Library Association Notable Book Award and was an NAACP Image Award nominee. Hum explores machines, technology, obsolescence, and community; in an interview, May stated of this collection, “Ultimately, I’m trying to say something about dichotomy, the uneasy spaces between disparate emotions, and by extension, the uneasy spaces between human connection.”
“Pomegranate Means Grenade”
The heart trembles like a herd of horses. —Jontae McCrory, age 11
Hold a pomegranate in your palm,
imagine ways to split it, think of the breaking
skin as shrapnel. Remember granada
means pomegranate and granada
means grenade because grenade
takes its name from the fruit;
identify war by what it takes away
from fecund orchards. Jontae,
there will always be one like you:
a child who gets the picked over box
with mostly black crayons. One who wonders
what beautiful has to do with beauty, as he darkens
a sun in the corner of every page,
constructs a house from ashen lines,
sketches stick figures lying face down-
I know how often red is the only color
left to reach for. I fear for you.
You are writing a stampede
into my chest, the same anxiety that shudders
me when I push past marines in high school
hallways, moments after video footage
of young men dropping from helicopters
in night vision goggles. I want you to see in the dark
without covering your face and carry verse
as countermeasure to recruitment videos
and remember the cranes buried inside the poems
painted on banners that hung in Tiananmen Square—
remember because Huang Xiang was exiled
for these. Remember because the poet Huang Xiang
was exiled for this: the calligraphy of revolt.
Always know that you will stand nameless
in front of a tank, always know you will not stand
alone, but there will always be those
who would rather see you pull a pin
from a grenade than pull a pen
from your backpack. Jontae,
they are afraid.
More at http://getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/74/
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Kevin Young, American poet and teacher of poetry and the director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Read his full poem "Ode to Midwest" via our Get Lit Anthology.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Nate Marshall, an award-winning author, editor, poet, playwright, performer, educator, speaker, and rapper. Interested in learning more about poetry or bringing our spoken word curriculum into a school near you? Visit https://www.getlit.org/ for more info.
"Praise Song"
praise the Hennessy, the brown
shine, the dull burn. praise
the dare, the take it, the no face
you’re supposed to make.
praise the house, its many rooms,
hardwood and butter leather couches;
its richness. praise the rich, their friendship.
praise the friends: the child of the well off,
the child of the well off, the child of well,
the child of welfare, the child of welfare.
praise the diversity but praise the Hennessy,
and again, and again. praise
the new year upon us. praise my stumble,
the shaky eye, the fluid arm, but the steady
hand. praise my hand, the burning it has.
praise the dive into the gut of a friend; the dousing
of my hand in his ribs. praise the softness of skin,
the way it always gives.
praise the pulling, the calming down.
Read the full poem here.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Crystal Valentine, a nationally and internationally acclaimed poet. Crystal is a generator and fierce protector of black joy, and strongly believes that intersectionality is a key factor in liberation. As a queer, black, woman, a lot of her work revolves around bridging the ever-present gap between her identities. Her goal is to provide a sanctuary within her poems that can be accessible to ALL black people: queer, trans, women, gender non conforming, disabled, poor, loud, angry, ghetto, for it is when all of these voices are present and accounted for that we can really begin the gruesome work of understanding and breaking down systematic oppression.
“On Evaluating Black Privilege”
Black privilege is the hung elephant swinging in the room,
Is the memory of a slave ship,
Praying for the Alzheimer’s to kick in.
Black privilege is me having already memorized my nephew’s eulogy,
My brother’s eulogy,
My father’s eulogy,
My unconceived child’s eulogy.
Black privilege is me thinking my sister’s name,
Safe from that list.
Black privilege is me pretending like I know Trayvon Martin on a first name basis,
Is me using a dead boy’s name to win a poetry slam,
Is me carrying a mouthful of other people’s skeletons
To use at my own convenience.
Read the full poem here.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet, novelist, and editor, Morgan Parker.
"Heaven Be A Xanax"
When people say how are you
I say good
It is a rule no one can answer
Crying in The Gap by my therapist’s office
or I am still angry with my parents
for traumatizing me
through organized sports
Dangerous and satisfying body of water
I can almost remember heaven
or Still a woman slaughtered for wonder
or Unfortunately misplaced grip
I am not doing a good job waiting
When I get to heaven I’m going
to wear my good bra
so no one can stay mad at me
I won’t have any feelings to hurt just
cheeseburgers on cheeseburgers on
deep colored slumber
Just men offering their golden bodies
And I will take the offering on my tongue
And it will not be a vault
And someone will not invade me
And I will kneel to pray
And I will address the prayer to myself
And I will be allowed
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Paul Laurence Dunbar, an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar was one of the first influential Black poets in American literature.
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, Langston Hughes. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
excerpt of “Let America Be America Again”
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.“)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
....
Read the full excerpt and learn more about Hughes at http://getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/57/
Watch our Get Lit Poets perform in the movie "Summertime" directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, and written and produced by Get Lit. Visit www.getlit.org for info on the film or to learn about accessing our programming for your school or literacy needs.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight Jamaican American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist, June Jordan. In her writing, she explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation.
Jordan was passionate about using Black English in her writing and poetry, teaching others to treat it as its own language and an important outlet for expressing Black culture.
Jordan was inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in 2019.
“A Short Note to My Very Critical and Well-Beloved Friends and Comrades”
First they said I was too light
Then they said I was too dark
Then they said I was too different
Then they said I was too much the same
Then they said I was too young
Then they said I was too old
Then they said I was too interracial
Then they said I was too much a nationalist
Then they said I was too silly
Then they said I was too angry
Then they said I was too idealistic
Then they said I was too confusing altogether:
Make up your mind! They said. Are you militant
or sweet? Are you vegetarian or meat? Are you straight
or are you gay?
And I said, Hey! It’s not about my mind
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet Krysten Hill. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she currently teaches and is the recipient of the 2016 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 2020 Mass Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship.
Do you LOVE poetry? Check out our monthly Free Verse Membership Club for the opportunity to network, collaborate, and just hang out with fellow artists/poets. Also make sure you watch the movie "Summertime" featuring 27 of our Get Lit Poets and directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, in theaters on July 9th. More info at http://www.getlit.org
"Nothing"
I ask a student how I can help her. Nothing is on her paper.
It’s been that way for thirty-five minutes. She has a headache.
She asks to leave early. Maybe I asked the wrong question.
I’ve always been dumb with questions. When I hurt,
I too have a hard time accepting advice or gentleness.
I owe for an education that hurt, and collectors call my mama’s house.
I do nothing about my unpaid bills as if that will help.
I do nothing about the mold on my ceiling, and it spreads.
I do nothing about the cat’s litter box, and she pisses on my new bath mat.
Nothing isn’t an absence. Silence isn’t nothing. I told a woman I loved her,
and she never talked to me again. I told my mama a man hurt me,
and her hard silence told me to keep my story to myself.
Nothing is full of something, a mass that grows where you cut at it.
I’ve lost three aunts when white doctors told them the thing they felt
was nothing. My aunt said nothing when it clawed at her breathing.
I sat in a room while it killed her. I am afraid when nothing keeps me
in bed for days. I imagine what my beautiful aunts are becoming
underground, and I cry for them in my sleep where no one can see.
Nothing is in my bedroom, but I smell my aunt’s perfume
and wake to my name called from nowhere. I never looked
into a sky and said it was empty. Maybe that’s why I imagine a god
up there to fill what seems unimaginable. Some days, I want to live
inside the words more than my own black body.
When the white man shoves me so that he can get on the bus first,
when he says I am nothing but fits it inside a word, and no one stops him,
I wear a bruise in the morning where he touched me before I was born.
My mama’s shame spreads inside me. I’ve heard her say
there was nothing in a grocery store she could afford. I’ve heard her tell
the landlord she had nothing to her name. There was nothing I could do
for the young black woman that disappeared on her way to campus.
They found her purse and her phone, but nothing led them to her.
Nobody was there to hold Renisha McBride’s hand
when she was scared of dying. I worry poems are nothing against it.
My mama said that if I became a poet or a teacher, I’d make nothing, but
I’ve thrown words like rocks and hit something in a room when I aimed
for a window. One student says when he writes, it feels
like nothing can stop him, and his laugher unlocks a door. He invites me
into his living.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet and educator, Terrance Hayes. His 2010 collection, Lighthead, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010.
About his work, Cornelius Eady has said: "First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world."
He has received many honors and awards, including a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, and three Best American Poetry selections, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation
“George Floyd”
“You can be a bother who dyes
his hair Dennis Rodman blue
in the face of the man kneeling in blue
in the face the music of his wrist-
watch your mouth is little more
than a door being knocked
out of the ring of fire around
the afternoon came evening’s bell
of the ball and chain around the neck
of the unarmed brother ground down
to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled
like a puff the magic bullet point
of transformation both kills and fires
the life of the party like it’s 1999 bottles
of beer on the wall street people
who sleep in the streets do not sleep
without counting yourself lucky
rabbit’s foot of the mountain
lion do not sleep without
making your bed of the river
boat gambling there will be
no stormy weather on the water
bored to death any means of killing
time is on your side of the bed
of the truck transporting Emmett
till the break of day Emmett till
the river runs dry your face
the music of the spheres
Emmett till the end of time”
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight American poet and essayist Rita Dove. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position
"Heart to Heart"
It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.
It doesn’t have
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—
but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we take a look at the life and work of poet, essayist, and fiction writer, Destiny O. Birdsong.
“failed avoidance of ‘the body’ in a poem”
your therapist wants to know where
in your body you most feel your anxiety.
you tell her in the bones
behind your face. they have their own
music, like ptolemy’s universe,
and chirp like shuriken
dancing in the road. your therapist says
you hurt because there are things
you’ve never been taught to do:
how to hold yourself in sleep.
how to drive. how to live with men.
back when you were five—or maybe four—
your father knelt before you for the last
time, close enough
that you could smell him, a zephyr
of kool’s filter kings and leaving.
he pushed the tricycle toward you, purple and white
streamers limp as hair on the handlebars.
by the time you mounted the cranium-shaped
seat, he was gone.
your new goal is to learn to breathe
through bones, to make flutes of them.
although, in reality, you are much more supple:
a crooked fold of flesh that comes so quickly
when called. you are the warm-bellied
animal on the shoulder,
coated in sunscreen and your father’s curiosity:
white-haired possum with his green, green eyes.
you’re now the oldest you may ever be.
you have never before been this afraid.
there are no bodies bound to rush in the room
when your own becomes a bullet ringing the tiles.
you know all about “love’s austere and lonely
offices”: checking your stools for blood.
checking your breasts for lumps. checking your neck
for swelling nodes. checking the locks,
the coffeepot, all the cracked
eyes blinking fire on the kitchen stove.
your own weep against a pillowcase
you haven’t washed, stiff with the
miasma of your hair. you stare
at pictures of the girlfriend grinning in sunlight.
you feel bad for not being taken with yourself more,
but your body is all asymptotes and fractals.
your own skin splinters in the dark
from your dense heat. the pieces
come back together under a halo of prescriptions
steeping your head in yellow light. sometimes,
while combing your hair, a sliver of cartilage
lodges in your finger pad. you lick
the glittering blood and spit out the shard.
compared to your father, this is not unkind.
somewhere between your skull and the skin
that swaddles it, all the songs you didn’t know
you needed to learn from him appear
and vanish with the rhythm of your breathing.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we focus on the life and work of scholar, novelist, and poet, Melvin Dixon. Influenced by James Baldwin, Dixon wrote extensively about the complexities of being a gay black man. Speaking on this topic at a speech to the Third National Lesbian and Gay Writers Conference, Dixon said, “As white gays deny multiculturalism among gays, so too do black communities deny multisexualism among their members. Against this double cremation, we must leave the legacy of our writing and our perspectives on gay and straight experiences.”
"Heartbeats"
Work out. Ten laps.
Chin ups. Look good.
Steam room. Dress warm.
Call home. Fresh air.
Eat right. Rest well.
Sweetheart. Safe sex.
Sore throat. Long flu.
Hard nodes. Beware.
Test blood. Count cells.
Reds thin. Whites low.
Dress warm. Eat well.
Short breath. Fatigue.
Night sweats. Dry cough.
Loose stools. Weight loss.
Get mad. Fight back.
Call home. Rest well.
Don’t cry. Take charge.
No sex. Eat right.
Call home. Talk slow.
Chin up. No air.
Arms wide. Nodes hard.
Cough dry. Hold on.
Mouth wide. Drink this.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
No air. Breathe in.
Breathe in. No air.
Black out. White rooms.
Head hot. Feet cold.
No work. Eat right.
CAT scan. Chin up.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
No air. No air.
Thin blood. Sore lungs.
Mouth dry. Mind gone.
Six months? Three weeks?
Can’t eat. No air.
Today? Tonight?
It waits. For me.
Sweet heart. Don’t stop.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we share the life and work of American Poet and Professor, Ross Gay. Included in this episode is a reading of his poem, "Love, I'm Done With You."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we discuss the life and work of American poet, essayist, and educator Robert Hayden. He served as a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold the office. Included in this episode is a reading of his poem "Those Winter Sundays."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight UK-based poet, playwright, and performer Inua Ellams. Included in this episode is a reading and review of his poem, "Fuck / Shakespeare."
And another thing / the grace you brought Othello / how you forged that moor / got him talking down his eloquence as if his tongue wasn’t part swan feather / part molasses / how you wrote a church of darkness steepled by Iago / and Ol’ Thello its soul / beacon of honor and light / Bruh / that shit literary fire / race-theory brimstone / middle-passage gold
but /
how you played Caliban / his tongue as Othello’s / and just as wronged / How you imbibed him with / emblemed him of colonized peoples / got me all riled up / imagining my ancestor’s vengeance / a rough blade thrust through Prospero’s proud heart / but you didn’t / Play ends / Cali still enslaved / Bruh / that shit fucked
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we take a look at the work of Sekou Andrews and his poem "When I Grow Up." Andrews is a schoolteacher turned actor, musician, two-time national poetry slam champion, entrepreneur, and award-winning poetic voice, and is also the host of our 10th Annual Classic Slam! You can join Andrews and help judge our Classic Slam Finals by tuning into www.classicslam.org at 7 pm pst on May 1, 2021.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones) who was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we spotlight American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, Countee Cullen, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance. Included in this episode is a reading of his poem, "Fruit Of The Flower."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of Safia Elhillo. Included in this episode is a reading of her poem “Ode to Gossips” - the full poem is available below for reference.
"Ode to Gossips"
BY SAFIA ELHILLO
i was mothered by lonely women some
of them wives some of them with
plumes of smoke for husbands all lonely
smelling of onions & milk all mothers
some of them to children some to old names
phantom girls acting out a life only half
a life away instead copper kitchenware
bangles pushed up the arm fingernails rusted
with henna kneading raw meat with salt
with coriander sweating upper lip
in the steam weak tea hair unwound
against the nape my deities each one
sandal slapping against stone heel sandal-
wood & oud bright chiffon spun
about each head coffee in the dowry china
butter biscuits on a painted plate crumbs
suspended in eggshell demitasse & they
begin i heard people are saying
i saw it with my own eyes [ ]’s daughter
a scandal she was wearing [ ]
& not wearing [ ] can you imagine
a shame a shame
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of francine j. harris. She was a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis and taught creative writing at University of Michigan and Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She is currently an associate professor of English at the University of Houston. Included in this episode is a reading of her poem “Single Lines Looking Forward. or One Monostich Past 45."
Full Poem:
The joke is orange. which has never been funny.
For awhile I didn’t sleep on my bright side.
Many airplanes make it through sky.
The joke is present. dented and devil.
For awhile, yellow spots on the wall.
Obama on water skis, the hair in his armpits, free.
I thought the CIA was operative.
Across the alley, a woman named Mildred.
Above the clouds in a plane, a waistline of sliced white.
I don’t sound like TED Talk, or smart prose on Facebook.
These clouds are not God.
I keep thinking about Coltrane; how little he talked.
This is so little; I give so little.
Sometimes when I say something to white people, they say “I’m sorry?”
During Vietnam, Bob Kaufman stopped talking.
The CIA was very good at killing Panthers.
Mildred in a housecoat, calling across the fence, over her yard.
If I were grading this, I’d be muttering curses.
The joke is a color. a color for prison.
Is it me, or is the sentence, as structure, arrogant?
All snow, in here, this writing, departure.
All miles are valuable. all extension. all stretch.
I savor the air with both fingers, and tongue.
Mildred asks about the beats coming from my car.
I forgot to bring the poem comparing you to a garden.
Someone tell me what to say to my senators.
No one smokes here; in the rain, I duck away and smell piss.
I thought the CIA was. the constitution.
I feel like he left us, for water skis, for kitesurfing.
The sun will not always be so gracious.
From the garden poem, one line stands out.
Frank Ocean’s “Nights” is a study in the monostich.
Pace is not breathing, on and off. off.
Mildred never heard of Jneiro Jarel.
I’m afraid one day I’ll find myself remembering this air.
The last time I saw my mother, she begged for fried chicken.
My father still sitting there upright, a little high.
Melissa McCarthy could get it.
Sometimes, I forget how to touch.
In a parking garage, I wait for the toothache.
I watch what I say all the time now.
She said she loved my touch, she used the word love.
In 1984, I’d never been in the sky.
My mother walked a laundry cart a mile a day for groceries.
Betsy DeVos is confirmed. with a broken tie.
Mildred’s five goes way up, and my five reaches.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of poet Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni as well as perform a reading of her poem "I Take Mastercard, Charge Your Love To Me."
View more info on Nikki Giovanni & read the full poem at http://getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/48/.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we spotlight American poet and professor, Camille T. Dungy. Included in this episode is a reading of her poem "Characteristics of Life."
Addressing the paucity of African American poets in anthologies of nature poetry, Dungy stated in a 2010 interview for the Oakland Tribune, “I miss seeing writers of color in the conversation. Until we have greater variety in the conversation, it is not a conversation—it is a monologue.” To that end, Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), which won a Northern California Book Award and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She was also co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (2009), and assistant editor for Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (2006). Dungy's most recent work includes the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History (2017).
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we spotlight American poet Wanda Coleman, who was also known as "the L.A. Blueswoman" and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles." Included in this episode is a reading of her poem, "Bedtime Story."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of poet F. Douglas Brown. He is the author of two poetry collections, ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. Included in this episode is a reading of Brown's poem, "How to Tell My Dad that I Kissed a Man”
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, we spotlight American poet, author, and teacher, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize. This episode includes a reading of her poem, "To the Young Who Want to Die," which is also featured in our Get Lit Virtual Anthology.
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In this week's episode, we discuss the writing style and impact of Aziza Barnes' work. We also do a reading and analysis of their work "my dad asks, how come black folks can't just write about flowers." Barnes' poetry is also featured in our Get Lit Anthology.
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, we celebrate the life and work of U.S. Youth Poet Laureate, first-time Superbowl poet, and all-around iconic and glass-shattering female youth artist, Amanda Gorman. We learn how she was inspired to get into poetry, how important it is for her to listen to music to write, and what race means during this moment in time. This episode features a reading and interpretation of "The Hill We Climb" - Gorman's inaugural poem, which is also available in our Get Lit Virtual Anthology.
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In this week’s episode, we get lit with Yusef Konunyaka. From a young age, Komunyaka understood the power of language. This episode includes a reading of his poem, “Anodyne” (featured in Get Lit Anthology).
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In this week’s episode, we dive into the groovy life of Porsha Olayiwola. Her work talks about her experience as a queer woman of color. This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Twerk Villanelle” (featured in Get Lit Anthology).
“Black, futurist, poet, dyke, hip-hop feminist, womanist: Porsha is a native of Chicago who now resides in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the artistic director at MassLEAP, a literary youth organization. Olayiwola is an MFA Candidate at Emerson College. Porsha Olayiwola is the author of i shimmer sometimes, too forthcoming with Button Poetry and is the current poet laureate for the city of Boston.” (http://www.porshaolayiwola.com/bio)
my girl positioned for a twerk session —
knees bent, hands below the thigh, tongue out, head
turned to look at her body’s precession.
she in tune. breath in. breasts hang. hips freshen.
she slow-wine. pulse waistline to a beat bled
for her, un-guilt the knees for the session.
fair form of vertebrae- backbone blessing,
her pop-in innate. her pop-out self-bred,
head locked into her holied procession.
dance is proof she loves herself, no questions —
no music required, no crowd needed.
she arched into a gateway, protecting —
this dance is proof she loves me, no guessing.
a bronx bedroom, we hip-to-hip threaded.
she turn to me, tranced by her possessing.
she coils herself to, calls forth a legend —
round bodied booty, bounce a praise ballad.
she break hold, turn whole in a twerk session.
body charmed, spell-bent, toward procession.
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In this episode of the Get Lit Minute, we celebrate the life and work of Audre Lorde. She was a self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet, ” who dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and homophobia. Included in this episode is a reading of Lorde's poem, "A Litany For Survival."
The full poem for "A Litany For Survival" is below:
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147275/a-litany-for-survival
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In this week’s episode, we get a glimpse at the beautiful journey of Patricia Smith. A storyteller at heart, Smith aims to explore every possibility. This episode includes her poem featured in the Get Lit Anthology, “Biting Back.”
“Biting Back” by Patricia Smith
Children do not grow up
as much as they grow away.
My son’s eyes are stones - flat, brown, fireless,
with no visible openings in or out.
His voice, when he cares to try it on,
hovers one-note in that killing place
where even the blues fidget.
Tight syllables, half spoken, half spat,
greet me with the warmth,
of glint-tipped arrows. The air around him
hurts my chest, grows too cold to nourish,
and he stares past me to the open door of his room,
anxious for my pattent-ed, stumbled retreat.
My fingers used to brush bit of the world
From his kinked hair,
but he moved beyond that mother shine
to whispered “fucks” on the telephone,
to the sweet mysteries of scalloped buttons
dotting the maps of young girls,
to the warped, frustrating truths of algebra,
to anything but me. Ancient, annoying apparatus,
I have unfortunately retained the ability to warm meat,
to open cans, to clean clothing
that has yellowed and stiffened.
I spit money when squeezed,
don’t try to dance in front of his friends,
And know that rap music canNOTT be stopped.
For these brief flashes of cool, I am tolerated in spurts.
At night I lay in my husband’s arms
and he tells me that these are things that happen,
that the world will tilt again
and our son will return, unannounced, as he was -
goofy and clinging, clever with words, stupefied by rockets.
And I dream on that.
One summer after camp,
twelve inches taller than the summer before,
my child grinned and said,
“Maybe a tree bit me.”
We laughed,
not knowing that was to be his last uttered innocence.
Only months later, eyes would narrow and doors would slam.
Now he is scowl, facial hair, knots of muscle. He is
Pimp, homey, pistol. He is man smell, grimy [grai-mee] fingers,
red eyes, rolling dice. He is street, smoke, cocked cannon.
And I sit on his bare mattress after he’s left for school,
wonder at the simple jumble of this motherless world,
look for clues that some gumpopping teenage girl
now wears my face. Full of breastmilk and finger songs,
I stumble the street staring at other children,
gulping my dose of their giggles,
and cursing the trees for their teeth.
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This week's Get Lit Minute focuses on Marquesha Babers, a Get Lit Poet and artist. We review her life to date and how she began her artistic journey. This episode also features a reading of Baber's poem "That Girl."
About Marquesha Babers: After growing up homeless and channeling her pain into power, Marquesha has become a mentor for Get Lit and an ambassador for the film Girl Rising, which stresses the importance of education for girls in developing countries. With Get Lit, she has performed at the MUSE Conference in Oregon, at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center (alongside Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton), at Cadogan Hall in London, and at colleges and universities throughout the nation. She has also appeared on the series Verses and Flow, and she is a blogger for ONE.org. Look out for her poetry anthology and memoir, coming soon to a bookstore near you! She is also featured in the upcoming 2020 film "Summertime", directed by Carlos López Estrada, who's first feature film "Blindspotting" (starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal) was nominated for the 2018 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, with Estrada nominated by the DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director. “Summertime” premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and will be distributed by Good Deed Entertainment in the Spring of 2021."
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of poet Dudley Randell. Included in this episode is a reading of Randell's poem, "Booker T. and W.E.B." The full poem is also available below. The influence of Dudley Randall, founder of Broadside Press and Detroit’s first poet laureate, “has been one of the strongest—some say the strongest—in the black poetry movement of the last 15 years,” argued Suzanne Dolezal in Detroit magazine. “As publisher of Detroit’s Broadside Press between 1965 and 1977, Randall provided a forum for just about every major black poet to come along during those years. And dozens of anthologies include his own rapid, emotional lyrics about Detroit’s bag ladies, lonely old drunks, strapping foundry workers, and young women with glistening, corn-rowed hair,” she continued. “Beyond Randall’s contributions as a poet, his roles as editor and publisher have proven invaluable to the Afro-American community,” R. Baxter Miller wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Booker T. and W.E.B.BY DUDLEY RANDALL
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?”
“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,
“If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I’ll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook.
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain.”
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“That all you folks have missed the boat
Who shout about the right to vote,
And spend vain days and sleepless nights
In uproar over civil rights.
Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,
But work, and save, and buy a house.”
“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,
“For what can property avail
If dignity and justice fail.
Unless you help to make the laws,
They’ll steal your house with trumped-up clause.
A rope’s as tight, a fire as hot,
No matter how much cash you’ve got.
Speak soft, and try your little plan,
But as for me, I’ll be a man.”
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.—
“I don’t agree,”
Said W.E.B.
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In this week's episode, we discuss the life and work of Claudia Rankine, winner of an Academy of American Poets Fellowship and the MacArthur Genius Grant. Rankine was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and educated at Williams College and Columbia University. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Harper's, GRANTA, The Kenyon Review, and the Lana Turner Journal. She co-edits (with Lisa Sewell) the anthology series American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. Today's episode also includes a reading of Rankine's poem, "Weather."
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In this week’s episode, we focus on the poet who learned to start a revolution through art, Sonia Sanchez. Included in this episode is a reading of Sanchez’s poem, “This is Not a Small Voice.”
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In this week’s episode, we talk about Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire. This episode includes a reading and discussion of Shire’s poem “Ugly” from her collection Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. More about Warsan Shire: Shire’s work deals with her cultural roots, immigrations, womanhood, Identity, and Somalia. She is the author of many collections, including Her Blue Body and Our Men Do Not Belong To Us, but her work has been featured in so much more.
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In this week's episode, we focus on writer, performer, and poet Danez Smith. This episode includes a reading and discussion of Smith's poem "Rose" (also featured in Get Lit's Anthology).
More about Danez Smith:
Danez Smith is a Black, queer, non-binary, HIV-positive writer and performer from St. Paul, MN. They are the author of the poetry collections Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards.
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In this week's episode, we remember the life and work of American soul and jazz poet, musician, author, and spoken-word performer, Gil Scott-Heron. Included in this episode is a reading of Scott-Heron's piece "I Think I'll Call It Morning."
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In this week’s episode, we discuss the work of Cameron Awkward-Rich, who began writing at the age of 12 and continued on to become a beloved contemporary poet and essayist.
He writes: “A lot of Slam Poetry is the perfect example of what an essay is. You have a hook, evidence, and all sorts of other things to present ideas.”
Nia also reads Cameron’s poem, “Cento Between the Ending and the End.” This poem is composed of language from Cameron’s friends and favorite Poets, including Danez Smith, Franny Choi, and the incomparable Lucille Clifton.
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In this week's episode, we discuss the life and work of American author and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates. Also included is a reading of an excerpt from his book, "Between The World & Me." It is written as a letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated with being Black in the United States. Coates recapitulates American history and explains to his son the "racist violence that has been woven into American culture." Coates draws from an abridged, autobiographical account of his youth in Baltimore, detailing the ways in which institutions like the school, the police, and even "the streets" discipline, endanger, and threaten to disembody black men and women. The work takes structural and thematic inspiration from James Baldwin's 1963 epistolary book The Fire Next Time. Unlike Baldwin, Coates sees white supremacy as an indestructible force, one that Black Americans will never evade or erase, but will always struggle against.
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In this week's episode, we discuss the work of Elizabeth Acevedo, a Dominican-American poet and author. She is the author of The Poet X, With the Fire on High and Clap When You Land. The Poet X is a New York Times Bestseller, National Book Award Winner, and Carnegie Medal winner.
This episode includes an excerpt from Acevedo's live performance of her poem "Afro Latina."
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In this episode, we discuss the life and work of Mahogany L. Browne, a writer, organizer & educator. She is the Executive Director of Bowery Poetry Club & Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC & Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College. Browne has received fellowships from Agnes Gund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby & Black Girl Magic (Macmillan), Kissing Caskets (Yes Yes Books) & Dear Twitter (Penmanship Books). She is also the founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair (a nationwide diversity literature campaign) & as an Arts for Justice grantee, is completing her first book of essays on mass incarceration, investigating its impact on women and children.
Included in this episode is a reading by Browne herself of "Working Title," written in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson.
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In this week's episode, we discuss Etheridge Knight and his life and works. Knight was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. With roots in the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement, Etheridge Knight and other American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African-American cultural and historical experience.
Excerpt from "Belly Song (for the Daytop Family)"
And I and I / must admit
that the sea in you
has sung / to the sea / in me
and I and I / must admit
that the sea in me
has fallen / in love
with the sea in you
because you have made something
out of the sea
that nearly swallowed you
And this poem
This poem
This poem / I give / to you.
This poem is a song / I sing / I sing / to you
from the bottom
of the sea
in my belly
This poem
This poem
This poem / is a song / about FEELINGS
Support the show at getlit.org
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, we discuss the work of Hanif Abdurraqib as well as the relationship between pain and artistry. We also read an excerpt from "They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us."
Learn more about Get Lit’s work here.
Support the show.
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This week, we learn about Tiana Clark, a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow and a recipient of a 2019 Pushcart Prize. She writes “Think about curating a museum exhibit. You get to decide how your reader is going to walk through your collection, or through your poem. Some pieces of art might have a ten-foot velvet rope, some others might be an interactive exhibit where you get to touch it, but you get to control that experience."
Learn more about Get Lit’s work here.
Support the show
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This week we learn about Jericho Brown, the 2020 Pulitzer -prize Winner for poetry and author of the viral poem “Bullet Points.” “I don’t think a poem should be a record for our lives,” he writes, “What I mean is that a poem should be a living organism.”
To learn more about Get Lit’s work visit getlit.org. Support the show at getlit.org/donate.
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This week we focus on Lucille Clifton, the author of more than sixteen books of poetry. The mother of six children, Lucille writes, “I continue to write because writing is a way of continuing to hope. Perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone.”
This season of Get Lit Minute focuses exclusively on Black artists and writers. To learn more about Get lIt’s work visit get lit.org. Support the show (getlit.org/donate).
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In the words of Amiri Baraka, James Baldwin was “God’s Black revolutionary mouth.”
Host Nia Lewis guides us through the life of one of America’s foremost literary geniuses. From his childhood in Harlem to his prolific writing years in France, we learn about one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, and conclude with a reading of the iconic “The Fire Next Time.”
This season of Get Lit Minute focuses exclusively on visionary Black artists and writers. To learn more about Get Lit’s work, visit getlit.org.
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In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we discuss the life and work of William Carlos Williams. A full-time doctor and literary figure, Williams helped change the language of American poetry by mimicking the language of the American people. Williams' life and work is an example of the experience we all have when deciding to become an artist.
Williams is strongly associated with the American modernist movement in literature and saw his poetic project as a distinctly American one; he sought to renew language through the fresh, raw idiom that grew out of America's cultural and social heterogeneity, at the same time freeing it from what he saw as the worn-out language of British and European culture. “No one believes that poetry can exist in his own life,” Williams said. “The purpose of an artist, whatever it is, is to take the life, whatever he sees, and to raise it up to an elevated position where it has dignity.”
Historical Research: The Poetry Foundation
"This is Just to Say — A Poem and its Parodies". The Attic. Retrieved 31 July 2019
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In this episode, we focus on Persian mystic, poet, and lecturer, Rumi. We follow his path across the Middle East with his theologian father and the artistic influences and mentors that guided his writing into adulthood. We conclude with the iconic poem, Breezes at Dawn, which compels us all to ask, in this time of quarantine-quiet, what do you really want?
Historical Research: Encyclopedia Brittanica
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This week, we focus on American confessional poet and novelist, Sylvia Plath. We trace the multitude of experiences, both painful and revelatory, that led to Plath's most famous work, The Bell Jar. Though Plath did not receive wide-spread acclaim during her lifetime, she became one of the most well-known poets of the 20th century, largely due to the strength of her poetry collection Ariel. Her work remains an incisive, important insight into mental health and the pursuit of an enlarged life.
Historical Research: The Poetry Foundation
More: GetLit.Org
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This week, we focus on Beat poet and visionary, Jack Kerouac. We explore Kerouac's development from Columbia University student to Allen Ginsberg's best friend, a relationship that would birth a new form of poetry and prose, akin to jazz of the written word. "Live, Travel, Adventure," Kerouac writes, "And don't be sorry."Historical Research: The Poetry Foundation
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This week, we focus on the iconic American poet, Maya Angelou. We explore Angelou's journey from Harlem to Ghana and the encouragement from James Baldwin that inspired her to write I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. We conclude with Caged Bird, which exemplifies Angelou's commitment to the liberation of all people: The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/of things/unknown/but longed for still/and his tune is heard/ on the distant hill /for the caged bird/sings of freedom.
Historical Research: The Poetry Foundation
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This week, we focus on the nineteenth-century American poet, Walt Whitman. We briefly touch on his time volunteering as a nurse during the civil war, and also share an anecdote on one of his most recognized photographs. Ralph Waldo Emerson would say of Whitman's seminal collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, to be "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.'' This episode will feature a spoken word reading of his 1865 poem, "O Captain! My Captain!".
Excerpt:
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Sources: This poem was reprinted in Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865); with revision in Passage to India (1871, 1876); and finally in "Drum-Taps," Leaves of Grass (1881–82). Historical Research: The Poetry Foundation & The Walt Whitman Archive.
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Welcome to the Get Lit Minute. Each week, we discuss literary topics & spotlight both classical and modern poets. Our first episode features a reading of one of our favorite poems by John Keats, as well as a brief history of his life and work. Want to hear about a specific poet? Write in a request! And please, subscribe to the Get Lit Minute.
Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)