Daniel Elias Galicia is the son of Chicana/o activists and educators. His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Button Poetry, EcoTheo Review, Ruminate Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review, Relief: A Journal of Art & Faith, and more. His chapbook Still Desert was the Runner-Up for the 2023 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest (Button Poetry), the 2022 Robert Phillips Chapbook Prize (Texas Review Press), and a Finalist for the 2023 Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize (Beloit Poetry Journal). He is a Pushcart-nominated poet and a recipient of an Editor’s Choice Award (Relief).
Hailey M. Tran is a DC-based and Lowell-raised dreamer. They are a queer Asian American Latina spoken word and performance poet, who believes in the transformative power of storytelling and art.
Hailey has their BA in Political Science and Social Work from Simmons University and is currently a high school history teacher. Passionate about helping students understand their ancestral memories, Tran’s pedagogy uses the creative process to interrogate structural and interpersonal violence. They strive to help their students to better understand racial, gendered, and queer identities, and connect with their community at large.
Hailey has competed in MassLEAP’s Louder Than a Bomb with FreeVerse! and the 2018 Brave New Voices Festival where they advanced to Final Stage. They have served as a Youth Spoken Word Leader for the Boston cohort. Hailey’s debut collection, an everyday occurrence, is forthcoming by Button Poetry.
Chelsea Guevara is a U.S.-Salvadorian poet from Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2024, she won the Womxn of the World International Poetry Slam, becoming the first Salvadoran and the first Utahn to earn a national individual slam title. Currently a student in the University of Arizona’s Latin American Studies graduate program, she utilizes her academic research to inform her creative work centering culture, history, memory, and identity. Chelsea’s micro-chapbook Somewhere Over the Border was a finalist for the Gunpowder Press Alta California Chapbook Prize in 2023. You can find her work on Button Poetry, Write About Now Poetry, and Mapping Literary Utah.
Meg Ford is a queer writer from New Jersey who was voted Most Likely to Leave and Never Come Back. They are a two-time National Poetry Slam semi-finalist with the Boston Poetry Slam Team and received their MFA from Emerson College. Their work has previously appeared in The Rumpus, NAILED, PANK, and the We Will Be Shelter Anthology from Write Bloody. Meg can most often be found hanging out with the cat at your party.
Performed at WOWPS 2023 in Baltimore, MD
“They will call us bitches cause we unmuted our voices and reclaimed our bodies, and isn’t that the irony? Being called a bitch when he’s the one hounding outside of the passenger seat window.”
Don’t miss this poem from Sherrika Mitchell, performing at WOWPS 2023 in Baltimore, MD
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“Love arrives exactly when love is supposed to, and love leaves exactly when love must.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist. Today’s additions: Zach Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Mica Rich, Clint Smith, and Sarah Kay! Congrats Poets!
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Performed at Albany Barn in Albany, NY in 2023.
“our joints creak and sigh like old rocking chairs”
Don’t miss this poem from Sierra DeMulder, performing at Albany Barn in Albany, NY in 2023.
Get Sierra’s book, Ephemera.
Performed NorthBeast Regional 2023 Finals
“Little does he know I’ve laid far unholier things on top my tongue than sugary dirt, the most cursed of which being his name.”
Don’t miss this poem from Mica Rich, performing NorthBeast Regional 2023 Finals
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Performed at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY
“We look up at her and she looks down at us and we have no explanation for this strange scene, only an invitation for her to join.”
Don’t miss this poem from Clint Smith, performing at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY
Get Button Poetry’s book, Counting Descent.