Happy New Year from all of us at Button!
We had an awesome 2014, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We published three awesome chapbooks, released our first album, reached 50,000,000 views and a quarter million subscribers on the Button YouTube, and traveled to eight states all across the country to film poetry.
We are so thankful to all of you for making this possible. Stay tuned for some big announcements to kick off 2015, including our forthcoming books!
On Sunday, October 26th, Button attended a Twin Cities community meeting organized by TruArtSpeaks and hosted by Juxtaposition Arts, addressing our organization’s recent actions in the Twin Cities, specifically our announcement of a prospective Educational Initiative.
Button would like to publicly recognize the historical and social implications of our actions, as they reflect a larger narrative of organizational oppressive practices. We are incredibly thankful for the people who put this meeting together, and all the community members who attended and shared their questions and perspectives. It was an educational and humbling experience. Button would like to once again apologize for the harm and hurt that our actions have caused members of the Twin Cities spoken word community, and the way in which our proposed Initiative supported a culture of privilege and injustice.
During and after the meeting, we had a number of constructive conversations with members of the community about positive steps moving forward. As suggested by TruArtSpeaks, Button is committed to undergoing a racial equity analysis and social justice training, and continuing to better educate the members of the Button team. Additionally, we are taking steps towards better communication within the organization, so that we can avoid these kinds of failures. Personally, I took a number of actions in haste and without consulting other members of the organization, and I am dedicated to correcting that mistake in the future.
As the Director, I am excited to continue this positive and respectful growth in our actions and engagement with the community. As an additional and specific action to create more possibility for dialogue and transparency, I will be holding regular, open hours at the Button office in the coming months, for anyone who would like to voice their comments or concerns or otherwise engage in dialogue with Button and myself. The first opportunity will be December 5th from 6-8pm at Button’s office at 1219 Marquette Suite 100 Minneapolis, MN 55403. Please stay tuned for additional information and times.
Sam Cook
Executive Director
Button Poetry
Information on the 2015 contest can be found here.
sam sax is an NEA Fellow and a Fellow at The Michener Center for Writers where he’s the associate poetry editor at Bat City Review. He’s the two time Bay Area Unified Grand Slam Champion + author of the chapbooks, A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters (Button Poetry 2014) + sad boy / detective (Winner of the Black Lawrence’s 2014 Black River Chapbook Prize). His poems are forthcoming in Boston Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, Normal School, Ninth Letter, Rattle, Salt Hill + other journals.
Button Poetry traveled to Austin, TX to capture the 2014 Women of the World Poetry Slam. Click here to see video from the festival!
From the official WOWPS website:
WOWPS is a four day poetry festival, in which 72 of the best female poets in the world compete against each other in order to crown the Women of the World Poetry Slam champion. Each of the competitors at WOWPS is a slam champion at her home venue, having defeated everyone else in order to clinch a spot at WOWPS.
In addition to the competition, each day of the festival features poetry workshops, themed open mics, special nighttime events, and parties. All events are open to the public and free with a festival pass. Some daytime events will also be free to the general public, with or without a pass.
When: March 19 – March 22, 2014
Where: Austin, TX
Get more festival information at the official site.
General questions about the WOWPS event? Email: info@wow.poetryslam.com
Questions about competing or participating in WOWPS? Contact our executive directory.
Competition at WOWPS is limited to poets who live their lives as women. All competing poets must be individual members of Poetry Slam, Inc.
In March of 2014, Button Poetry traveled to the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in Boulder, Colorado to capture video of dozens of poets. We believe that documenting the voices of our art form–especially these rising stars–plays a vital role in the growth and innovation of poetry. The videos are available on our YouTube page.
Only two days until the release of Button’s first eBook! VIRAL features new and classic work from Lily Myers, Neil Hilborn, Javon Johnson, Rachel Rostad, Dylan Garity, Guante and Pages Matam. Today, we wanted to offer everyone a sneak preview of the book, with the foreword from Button Head Editor Michael Mlekoday. We might just be turning into a couple of softies, but we actually teared up reading this for the first time (and, you know, again right now).
-Sam & Dylan
Button Poetry and Exploding Pinecone Press are delighted to announce J. SCOTT BROWNLEE as the winner of our 2013 chapbook competition, judged by Rachel McKibbens. Brownlee’s chapbook, Highway or Belief, will be published this winter.
Stay tuned for more from Brownlee, and to find out the rest of our winter chapbook catalog.
J. SCOTT BROWNLEE is a Writers in the Public Schools Fellow at NYU, where he teaches poetry to undergraduates and fifth graders through the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. His work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, RATTLE, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nashville Review, Ninth Letter, BOXCAR Poetry Review, The Greensboro Review, Devil’s Lake, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and elsewhere. A Pushcart nominated poet-of-place, Brownlee writes primarily about the people and landscape of rural Texas and is a founding member of The Localists, a new literary movement that emphasizes place-based writing of personal witness, cultural memory, and the aesthetically marginalized working-class, both in the United States and abroad. His book-length work, Disappearing Town, was named a finalist for the 2013 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Hey Buttoneers,
Sam and Dylan here with what we hope will be the start of more regular updates! So the last few months have been pretty ridiculous here at Button. Word on the street is that we’ve gone viral! Our first few YouTube successes have become the foundation for a body of work totalling over 13 million views including Neil Hilborn’s “OCD”, the most viewed poetry performance on the internet (and thus anywhere, ever). We published our first book, Aziza Barnes’s me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun, and hosted a release show for her in Minneapolis. We ran the second Exploding Pinecone Chapbook Contest, and traveled to Massachusetts, Nebraska and Texas to film poetry tournaments. And it’s only speeding up from here.
In the next few months, watch for more video, our first ever Ebook release, new books from new authors, more contests, entirely new products (maybe even sweaters!), and much more. Thanks to everyone for supporting us and this art form. We can’t wait to see what’s next.
-Sam & Dylan
D: Is buttoneers a pun on boutonnières? There’s really no reason for it to be. Our community are not tiny flowers.
S: Nah, I think it’s more like being a poetry buccaneer. Fans of poetry with snazzy boots.
D: As long as it’s not like being a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. ‘Cause they are bad at football. Sports reference. We’re not nerds.
Aziza Barnes is a brown woman poet from Los Angeles currently living in New York. She is a senior at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, pursuing her BFA in theater, creative writing and Africana Studies. She was a member of NYU’s poetry slam teams in 2011 and 2012, winning first place in the nation. A member of the Dance Cartel, Aziza performs in venues around New York and is finishing a residency at the Ace Hotel. She is a co-founder of the Divine Fabrics Collective. Winner of the 2012 Button Poetry Prize and author of me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun.
