“I wonder if I’m just a beautiful thing meant for the world to make theirs?”
Don’t miss this remarkable poem from Porsha Olayiwola, featuring at Button Poetry Live.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“I imagine, when God made you, he cussed for the first time. He turned to an angel, gave him a high five and said: ‘Goddamn, I’m good!’”
Don’t miss this wonderful poem from Rudy Francisco, featuring at his book release party at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Get your copy of Rudy’s book, HELIUM.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, Olivia Gatwood, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
2017 Button Poetry Video Contest.
“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 brilliant poem by Kevin Kantor, runner-up in the 2017 Button Poetry Video Contest!
Stay tuned for more information about our 2018 Video Contest!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rudy Francisco, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Maybe I was supposed to be a lumberjack or a loaded insult in someone else’s grip, something my white neighbors would think is dangerous, but too honorable to fear.”
Don’t miss this magnificent poem from William Evans, featuring at Button Poetry Live. Make sure to grab a copy of William’s book, STILL CAN’T DO MY DAUGHTER’S HAIR.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rachel Wiley, & 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!
2017 Button Poetry Video Contest.
“Come back to me. Come back to me the way leaves come back to trees in spring, the way ocean comes back to shoreline, the way hair should back to a head after a haircut.”
Don’t miss this hilarious poem by Jonathan Salazar, runner-up in the 2017 Button Poetry Video Contest!
Stay tuned for more information about our 2018 Video Contest!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rudy Francisco, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“You’re young, you’re Black, you’re male. Don’t you know all you ever gonna have is the hustle?”
Don’t miss this incredible poem from Steven Willis, performing at the 2017 Rustbelt Poetry Festival.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Sabrina Benaim, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Non-bisexual people definitely know more about being bisexual than I do.”
Don’t miss this incredible poem from Daniel, performing at Button Poetry Live.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
2017 Button Poetry Video Contest.
“A smile might save a stranger’s life, so do not use it sparingly.”
Don’t miss this phenomenal poem by Khaleefa Hamdan, runner-up in the 2017 Button Poetry Video Contest!
Stay tuned for more information about our 2018 Video Contest!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, 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!
