“Why do I have to prove my love is authentic?”
Congratulations to Denice Frohman on topping 3,000,000 views on this marvelous poem!
Check out more videos from Denice, here and here.
And while you’re here, make sure to check out our other books and merch as well, including our awesome t-shirts, posters, and books by Olivia Gatwood, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rudy Francisco, Guante, Rachel Wiley, and our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“I did not know then that identities could be lost in translation.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Diksha Bijlani, & Neil Hilborn. Congrats poets!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, and William Evans!
“Our love is tragic. Our bodies are tragic. Our struggle is your selling point, your box-office bait, your elevator pitch.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Kevin Kantor, & Steven Willis! Congrats poets!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Batman’s superpower is white privilege.”
Congratulations to Omar Holmon on topping 100,000 views on this marvelous poem!
And while you’re here, make sure to check out our other books and merch as well, including our awesome t-shirts and poster and books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Olivia Gatwood, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rudy Francisco, Guante, Rachel Wiley, and our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
In-Depth Look: Alysia Harris – “Death Poem”
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“Become dust with me, my love, insignificant and everywhere.”
———
Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre
I always appreciate poems that take something big and universal, something that we all already “understand” on an intellectual level, and challenge us to see that something in a new way. Death, for example, is everywhere, every day, something we all have to deal with in one way or another. Because of its universality, certain tropes and motifs have sprouted up around the concept of death– the grim reaper, tombstones, caskets, skeletons, mausoleums, etc.
This poem doesn’t just repeat those tropes, but it also doesn’t completely ignore them; its imagery walks that line between what is familiar and what is new. So yes, there are skulls in the poem, but there are also “sprouts of curious grass shooting from our eye sockets.” That shift– evident in the imagery as well as the deeper issues explored in the poem– creates space for us to rethink our understanding of death. How does a conversation about death intersect with a conversation about love? What can we learn by juxtaposing the two concepts? Perhaps in doing so, we can gain a greater understanding of both, even when they’re so often held up as opposites. This poem challenges that framework in a memorable and powerful way.
Find more from Alysia Harris here.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Non-bisexual people definitely know more about being bisexual than I do.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Daniel, & Rachel Wiley! Congrats poets!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“You are asking me to do something I have never had the privilege to. Blindness is never a solution.”
Congratulations to Joseph Capehart on topping 100,000 views on this amazing poem!
And while you’re here, make sure to check out our other books and merch as well, including our awesome t-shirts and poster and books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Olivia Gatwood, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rudy Francisco, Guante, Rachel Wiley, and our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
In-Depth Look: EJ Schoenborn – “Controversial Opinion: In Defense of Cargo Shorts”
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“My body and cargo shorts are both thought of as disposable.”
———
Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre
In a weird coincidence, I once also wrote a poem called “In Defense of Cargo Shorts.” I only ever performed it a couple of times, so I’m sure EJ hasn’t heard it. But it speaks to the power of that particular symbol, and of symbolism more generally. So much of poetry is “digging in” to a particular image, or moment, or object in order to unearth something meaningful, something that might transform how people understand an issue or idea via that symbol.
And what a symbol. Cargo shorts, culturally, carry so much baggage related to class, culture, gender, and beyond. Every now and again, there’ll be a think-piece or listicle up on fashion sites or pop culture blogs talking about how terrible cargo shorts are, and if you don’t think critically about them, it can be easy to just laugh them off. But if you do take a moment to dig a little deeper, you might unearth some powerful questions about the relationships between identity and expression, culture and consumerism.
This poem uses that symbol in such a specific and powerful way, also utilizing the structural tool of “the turn” (how a poem might start with one tone, and then shift to another to make the audience understand what came before in a new way). That last line brings in all home so unforgettably: “If the pickup lines think I’m a straight man, maybe I can walk home tonight, alive.” The line challenges the audience to rethink their assumptions about cargo shorts, sure. But in doing that, it digs so much deeper, challenging us to rethink other assumptions we might have too– about gender identity, expression, safety, and more.
Find more from EJ Schoenborn in the archives!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Who are you fooling, they just have to take one look at you to know where you came from.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Melissa Lozada-Oliva, & Michael Lee! Congrats poets!
While you’re here on our site, make sure to check out our books and merchandise in the Button Store, including books by Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Rudy Francisco, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
In-Depth Look: Guante – “A Pragmatist’s Guide to Magic”
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“We don’t have spells, but we do have songs.”
———
Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre
Doing these write-ups, I haven’t had a chance yet to cover my own work, and I appreciate the opportunity to write about this particular poem. This one took years of revisions– and the experiences that informed those revisions– to get to this point.
I remember that I had actually challenged myself to write about hope. For me, that’s harder to wrap my head around than critique, or the calling out of problems, or the kind of tell-it-like-it-is realism that informs so many spoken word poems. So in order to explore the idea of hope, I decided to lean into its opposite: the idea of disillusionment, the creeping dread and cynicism that’s so difficult to not feel if you pay any attention at all to the world.
I definitely feel it, which I why I needed to write this poem: to remind myself that although cynicism as a feeling is absolutely valid, cynicism as some kind of pompous, above-it-all political position is bullshit. Because no matter how bad things get, the reality is that everyday people, organizing together, have fought and struggled and won, over and over again, for centuries. Change is possible. Hope isn’t naive; it just takes work. Hope is something we build, not something that’s given to us.
Even when my poems are explicitly about race, or gender, or class, the thing that I’m really interested in writing about is power. While power can be wielded by tyrants and bigots and institutions, it’s also something that we have. For me, poetry has always been a way to affirm that, to push back against the narrative that we’re just spectators drifting along through history, and not the people who actively shape it.
This poem is new, so it’s not in my book, but my book might be a good place to start if you like my work. Find more at my website, and on Twitter.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
