In-Depth Look: Suzi Q Smith – “Bones”

In-Depth Look: Suzi Q Smith – “Bones”

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.

“Bridges can be cages too; let them all burn.”

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Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre


Get Guante’s Book Here
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Because my biggest poem is a “number poem,” people often ask about that approach with regards to their own writing. In that question, though, there’s often a hint of suspicion, as if poems built around numbered sections represent some kind of poetic cheat code, an easy way to sound deep without really justifying the structural conceit. And sure, that happens.

This poem, however, is a great example of how a number poem can work, and work beautifully. At its core, a number poem is a way to fragment an idea; to use a visual metaphor, I think of number poems as less photorealistic and more impressionistic. Rather than offer some big, authoritative thesis statement about a topic, you can build an idea out of smaller pieces; the substance of the poem is contained both in those pieces and in how those pieces relate to one another.

In this poem, the separation of the main idea into smaller sections allows Smith to deploy a whirlwind of concrete images– the fire, the tampons, the stitches, the gallbladder, the hurricane, the bones. Because the poem is already fragmented, those images get to stand on their own as they appear. That fragmentation also allows different sections to provide context for one another. For example: …when I was reminded to be humble, when I was taught to be polite, when I was raised to be a Christian, all forgiveness and long suffering, when I was beaten into being a good girl… connects the deeply personal to larger ideas about society and culture, expanding the “work” of the poem in a powerful way.

Find more from Suzi Q. Smith here.

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While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Neil Hilborn, Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Best of Button Week 162

“If you tear the part that says ‘peanut’ off of a peanut butter jar, that does not make it butter. That does not make it any less brown, any more yellow.”



Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: T. Miller, Patrick Roche, Raych Jackson, Ephraim Nehemiah, & Melissa Lozada-Oliva. 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 Danez Smith, Olivia Gatwood, Neil Hilborn, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rudy Francisco, Stevie Edwards, Claire Schwartz, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Siaara Freeman – “Hexes For My Exes (after Rachel Wiley)” (100K Views!)

“I wish you girls who claim they can’t cook, and they can cook, they just don’t wanna cook for your punk ass.”

Congratulations to Siaara Freeman on topping 100,000 views on this wonderful poem. Watch more videos from Siaara here!



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: Bianca Phipps – “When the Boy Says He Loves My Body”

In-Depth Look: Bianca Phipps – “When the Boy Says He Loves My Body”

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.

“I find my body is a locked door. I find I locked myself out.”

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Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre


Get Guante’s Book Here
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This whole series is built around the idea of “sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times” in order to come to a deeper understanding of and appreciation for that poem. That process, however, is so much bigger than poetry. The basic idea of thinking more critically about our language, our actions, our culture– everything– is valuable whether or not you have any interest in writing and performing poems.

This piece captures some of why that is. The entire poem is built around a “catalyst moment:” there is an action (when the boy says he loves my body, but does not say he loves me), and a reaction. That reaction is full of imagery, metaphor, and a deeper analysis of the catalyst, even if nothing really “happens” on a literal level– the poem is a meditation, an opportunity to cultivate within ourselves a fuller understanding of that line that kicks everything off.

Some of my favorite poems are built like this– give us a scenario that does not at all seem special, and then illuminate why it is special. Give us a “simple” image, and then show us its complexity. In this poem’s case, give us a “throwaway” bit of dialogue (as something like this catalyst statement could potentially be interpreted, at least by its speaker), and then explore its layers, its nuance, its impact.

For more from Bianca Phipps: Facebook | Twitter

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While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Neil Hilborn, Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Best of Button Week 161

“It’s scientifically proven that tall people are more attractive or some shit.”



Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Toaster, Olivia Gatwood, & Sabrina Benaim. 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 Danez Smith, Olivia Gatwood, Neil Hilborn, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rudy Francisco, Stevie Edwards, Claire Schwartz, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Nora Cooper – “I Won’t Write Your Obituary” (500 Views!)

“People will confuse my tongue with your tombstone and try to plant daisies in my throat.”

Congratulations to Nora Cooper on topping 500,000 views on this wonderful poem. Watch more videos from Nora 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 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: Isha Camara – “Loudest Burial”

In-Depth Look: Isha Camara – “Loudest Burial”

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.

“Eye for an eye? More like tooth for whole skull.”

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Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre


Get Guante’s Book Here
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The stereotype about spoken word is that it’s all “big,” capital-P Political Poems, and there is some truth in that. When the stage is one of the only public forums we have to discuss the things that we care about, it’s only natural that it becomes a platform for work that engages with the world. That stereotype, however, often seems to be framed negatively, as though “political poems” were inherently hollow, just “ranting and raving” without any craft or heart.

This poem is a great counterpoint to that, showing how a poem can be both explicitly political and very much grounded, concrete, and human. From “the hands of your loved ones,” to a mother’s voice, to a clear-eyed view of Obama’s legacy, this isn’t a poem about “those people over there,” a stumble that some attempts at political poetry make; the poem finds a way to comment on world events through the lens of personal experience.

In “Why Authoritarians Attack the Arts,” scholar and poet Eve Ewing writes: “Art creates pathways for subversion, for political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders. Art teaches us that lives other than our own have value.” I’m hearing this poem in that context; the work that this poem is doing is important, and is work that we (especially those of us who are poets) can and should contribute to as well.

Hear another one of Isha Camara’s poems here!

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While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Neil Hilborn, Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Best of Button Week 160

“I am learning that the difference between a garden and a graveyard is only what you choose to put in the ground.”



Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Rudy Francisco, Jared Singer, & Neil Hilborn. 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 Danez Smith, Olivia Gatwood, Neil Hilborn, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Rudy Francisco, Stevie Edwards, Claire Schwartz, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!

Jared Singer – “Just Take a Shower” (250K Views!)

“The hardest thing I ever did was take a shower.”

Congratulations to Jared Singer on topping 250,000 views on this wonderful poem. Watch more videos from Jared 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 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: Hieu Minh Nguyen – “The Translation of Grief”

In-Depth Look: Hieu Minh Nguyen – “The Translation of Grief”

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.

“I throw a fistful of sand in the air and pretend to weep.”

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Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre


Get Guante’s Book Here
———

I started writing down lines from this poem that could be used as a jumping-off point to begin to explore its central idea, but I ended up writing down just about the entire poem. And maybe that’s the lesson for aspiring poets– know what work the poem is trying to do, and make sure every line– every word– contributes in a meaningful way to that work.

A room has four walls (if that); it doesn’t need five or six or seven. That can take a lifetime to figure out, if it can be “figured out” at all, but this poem from Hieu Minh Nguyen is a brilliant example of what that kind of efficiency can look like. Note how every line is a complete thought, but how every thought also functions as a transition to the next thought. Take a closer look at the third quarter (or so) of the poem:

I anticipate this grief by exhausting it with music. I open the casket; I make her dance in the center. It is the habit of the artist to see a hole and fill it with imagination. It is the habit of the living to see everyone you love and imagine them dead. I can lick the dirt off of all of your faces. I can sing any dirge, in any key, but the translation of grief will always be flat. There will always be the contrasting light between what is expected, and what would change your bones.

The sound, the light, the taste, the movement in these lines– the sensory/concrete language is so full without being overwhelming. Each one of those lines could work on their own, as a shareable Instagram quote, or as a tattoo. But together, they flow elegantly into one another, a series of images building momentum and intensity, leading up to the poem’s final image of the single black strand of hair.

That’s all shop talk, poetry stuff. But this poem also pushes boundaries with regards to substance, exploring something profound, unsettling, and important about grief, about mortality, and about translation– both in terms of the “translating her life into English” line, and the deeper process of how we translate other people’s lives/deaths into our own grief– selfishly, imperfectly, inescapably.

Find more from Hieu Minh Nguyen (including info on his NEW book) here!

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While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Neil Hilborn, Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!