“Sooner or later you will realize that you are praying to your own shadow, that you are standing in front of mirrors and are worshipping your own reflection.”
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, Olivia Gatwood, Rachel McKibbens, & Sienna Burnett. Congratulations poets!
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.
“Year after year she makes flowers bloom in the hood, petals in the face of this land that doesn’t want her here.”
In a few of these writeups, I’ve written about the immense power of identifying moments. When poems are less like movies and more like photographs, when they force us to look at a single scene rather than telling us the whole story, it gives us space to really sit with an idea, to grapple with it, to process it. This poem does that as well as any I can think of. Through this “small” narrative moment, something very “big” is communicated– about the USA, about the immigrant/refugee experience, about dignity, respect, and rage.
For me, that really gets at what poetry is, on a fundamental level. Sometimes, by just telling a story, or painting a picture of a specific memory, you can say more than some 10,000 word think-piece or essay.
And Bao Phi is so good at that. I make no secret of the fact that Bao is one of my favorite poets of all time, and that his two books, “Sông I Sing” and “Thousand Star Hotel,” are always in my top five list of book recommendations when people ask me what poetry they should read. This poem is a great introduction to his work, which so elegantly weaves together powerful personal narrative, unblinking ferocity, and a whole lot of heart.
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Rachel Wiley, Talia Young, & Brittany Rogers. Congratulations poets!
Check out Rachel’s forthcoming book, NOTHING IS OKAY, dropping March 2018!
“‘That time of the month’ has about double the amount of syllables as ‘period’.”
Congratulations to Raych Jackson on topping 500,000 views on this amazing poem. Check out more videos from Raych and the 2017 Rustbelt Poetry Festival here.
“I’m not here to make you comfortable, I’m here to free myself.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Neil Hilborn, Sam Sax, & Paul Tran! Congratulations poets!
“Fat girl walks into the doctor’s to ask about anti-depressants and gets prescribed exercise instead, because obviously her depression is because of her fat, and obviously fat bodies never exercise and stay fat.”
Congratulations to Rachel Wiley on topping 100,000 views on this remarkable poem. Check out more videos from Rachel here and here.
Don’t forget to check out Rachel’s forthcoming book, NOTHING IS OKAY, dropping March 2018!
