“I wait in line at the pharmacy counter to pick up the refills for my anti-depressants, and prominently placed right next to the counter is a five-foot display of religious books promising a happy fulfilled life through prayer. I should’ve known. I should have known my mother would follow me in here like that.”
Don’t miss this breathtaking poem from Patrick Roche, performing at the 2017 Rustbelt Poetry Festival.
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.
“Eye for an eye? More like tooth for whole skull.”
The stereotype about spoken word is that it’s all “big,” capital-P Political Poems, and there is some truth in that. When the stage is one of the only public forums we have to discuss the things that we care about, it’s only natural that it becomes a platform for work that engages with the world. That stereotype, however, often seems to be framed negatively, as though “political poems” were inherently hollow, just “ranting and raving” without any craft or heart.
This poem is a great counterpoint to that, showing how a poem can be both explicitly political and very much grounded, concrete, and human. From “the hands of your loved ones,” to a mother’s voice, to a clear-eyed view of Obama’s legacy, this isn’t a poem about “those people over there,” a stumble that some attempts at political poetry make; the poem finds a way to comment on world events through the lens of personal experience.
In “Why Authoritarians Attack the Arts,” scholar and poet Eve Ewing writes: “Art creates pathways for subversion, for political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders. Art teaches us that lives other than our own have value.” I’m hearing this poem in that context; the work that this poem is doing is important, and is work that we (especially those of us who are poets) can and should contribute to as well.
“I am learning that the difference between a garden and a graveyard is only what you choose to put in the ground.”
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, Jared Singer, & Neil Hilborn. Congrats poets!
“I told my ex that I didn’t pray. I believe in God, but it’s just something that I didn’t do. After this discovery, she said she didn’t know if she could date me anymore.”
Don’t miss this hilarious poem from Omar Holmon, featuring at Button Poetry Live.
