Performing at Icehouse.
“There is no voice willing to speak for us, so it’s a good thing we know how to yell.”
Don’t miss this intense poem from Guante, performing at Icehouse.
Guante’s book, A LOVE SONG, A DEATH RATTLE, A BATTLE CRY, is now available!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Sabrina Benaim, Neil Hilborn, Andrea Gibson, Blythe Baird, Desireé Dallagiacomo, & our newest release from Michael Lee!
Performing at Button Poetry Live.
“How loud do you have to be to put out a house fire with just your voice?”
Don’t miss this incredible poem from Guante, performing at Button Poetry Live.
Guante’s book, A LOVE SONG, A DEATH RATTLE, A BATTLE CRY, is now available!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Sabrina Benaim, Neil Hilborn, Andrea Gibson, Blythe Baird, Desireé Dallagiacomo, & our newest release from Michael Lee!
Performing at Icehouse.
“I knew then that we were going to share whatever forever we had left.”
Don’t miss this phenomenal poem from Guante, performing at his book release party at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Don’t forget to check out Guante’s book, A LOVE SONG, A DEATH RATTLE, A BATTLE CRY.
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, Neil Hilborn, & our newest release from Phil Kaye!
“Note the creative phrasing, the novel juxtaposition of words: ‘the officer discharged his weapon, striking the individual.’”
Don’t miss this brilliant poem from Guante, performing at his book release party at Icehouse in Minneapolis. Don’t forget to check out Guante’s book, A LOVE SONG, A DEATH RATTLE, A BATTLE CRY.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, & 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.”
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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!
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.”
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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!
In-Depth Look: Danez Smith – “Trees”
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.
“Look, y’all: they look like slow green explosions…”
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Write-up by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre
Spoken word is “a thing that people can do,” in that anyone can write a poem, stand up in front of other people, and say it out loud. But it’s also something deeper than that– it’s a community, a movement, a culture in which certain practices, ideas, and impulses are shared.
So we can talk about an individual poem by itself, focusing on things like structure, word choice, and performance– but we can also talk about an individual poem in the context of that culture. We can talk about how it exists in dialogue with other poems. We can talk about how the poem “works” on a slam stage, vs. in a literary journal, vs. in a cypher with a bunch of friends, vs. at a political rally. People are free to disagree with me on this, but one thing I really appreciate about spoken word and slam poetry– as culture– is this acknowledgement that context matters, that who we are, where we are, and who is listening all impact what the poem “is.”
This poem is brilliant and beautiful in a vacuum, sure. Danez is one of the best writers in the world. But what really strikes me about this poem is how it plays with context. For example, all of the names listed are real people; I know some of them, and that impacts how I hear the poem. But here’s a deeper example: people outside of poetry circles may not be aware that the phrase “poems about trees” is very often shorthand for a kind of “traditional,” MFA-informed, white-centered, aggressively apolitical poetry that is often set up as a foil for the current spoken word movement. So Danez taking the *archetype* of that style of poetry, and flipping it so powerfully, serves to also demolish the very idea that there has to be some kind of binary approach to poems, that they can either be “about trees” or “about real shit.” The poem isn’t just substantive; it’s also subversive. This is what culture-shifting work looks like.
Find more from Danez on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! Make sure to check out Danez’s book, BLACK MOVIE.
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
“Remember: when they look right through you, you’re still there.”
Don’t miss this magnificent poem from Guante, 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, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
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
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!
“When we win, it will not be because we have convinced our enemies to love us. It will be because we have beaten them.”
Don’t miss this powerful poem from Guante, featuring at his book release show at Icehouse in Minneapolis.
Get your hands on a copy of Guante’s incredible book, A LOVE SONG, A DEATH RATTLE, A BATTLE CRY, now available!
While you’re here, head over to the Button store to check out our books and merch, including books by Olivia Gatwood, Hanif Abdurraqib, Donte Collins, Sabrina Benaim, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, William Evans, Guante, Rachel Wiley, & our newest release from Neil Hilborn!
