“I can’t help but believe if the women I loved were gathered at a table, the general consensus among them would be, alright, the good thing about Omar is that he doesn’t take anything seriously. The bad thing about Omar, is that he doesn’t take anything seriously.”
Don’t miss this incredible poem from Omar Holmon, featuring at Button Poetry Live.
“Stained glass is sometimes just light born in a better neighborhood and I can smell the gunpowder you swallowed every time I startle a flock of birds that will never fly again.”
Don’t miss this magnificent poem from William Evans, featuring at Button Poetry Live.
In-Depth Look: Ashaki Jackson – “The Public is Generally Self taught and Uninformed”
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.
“Sometimes there is silence after a video is released. You want to describe it as grief, or disbelief, or trauma.”
In addition to being a poet, Ashaki M. Jackson, Ph.D., is also a social psychologist. That feels relevant when experiencing this poem, which does so much with so few words. Note how the poem is written in second-person, but that the “you” feels alive in its specificity. At first, it feels perhaps self-incriminating, exploring the reflexive thoughts that many of us have when reading about another injustice. But as the poem goes on, it moves from the universal to something a bit more focused, which brings everything back to the title. This is a poem that has something specific to say– not just about media and information, but about the specific issue of police violence and its roots in US history.
The poem is also a powerful crystallization of an idea that I’ve found more and more friends and colleagues (in poetry, academia, and beyond) discussing lately– how hungry we are for hot-takes, and how difficult it can be to get a more nuanced, multi-layered idea to catch fire and go viral. When excavating the whole truth requires that we “consider the history of policing in a chattel system” (explored in books and articles like this), are we really willing to do that, or will we be content with incomplete truths?
“Black girls have memories of water as both grief in the split of the neck bone, and the desire to be clean, to leave the hair salon a holy new thing.”
Don’t miss this beautiful poem by Sojourner Ahebee, runner-up in the 2017 Button Poetry Video Contest!
Stay tuned for more information about our 2018 Video Contest!
“Oh Fuck Boy, how did I live without you? Why didn’t I know I needed someone to drink all of my Hennessy?”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Ashlee Haze, Sabrina Benaim, & Jared Paul. Congrats poets!
In-Depth Look: Soups – “The Dark Side of Being Mixed”
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.
“That’s when you’ll be forced to swallow the truth. It will taste expired.”
One thing we often talk about in writing/performance workshops is how important a poem’s first and last lines are. This is true for many kinds of art, but takes on special importance in spoken word, where grabbing the audience’s attention right away– and also leaving them with something that sticks– can help to mitigate the effects of the audience’s inevitable wandering attention.
My first home was inside the womb of a white woman is such an evocative, gripping first line, and perfectly sets up the central question/idea that the piece grapples with: how racism can affect– and infect– even the closest of relationships. The poem starts by talking about that effect in terms of other people’s perceptions, but then powerfully transitions into sharing stories and scenes that show how that effect isn’t just about other people’s perceptions– there is a kind of distance created by privilege, by pop culture, by this country’s white supremacist history, that can’t be fully bridged no matter how loving the personal relationship.
That leads us to the closing line: She will always have the choice of being either weapon or shield, and all I will ever be is target. This line works on an emotional/relationship level, bringing the poem full-circle, but it also works on a larger, political level: it captures something profound about the idea of allyship. Even the most committed allies, the people bound not just by principle but by real love to those they choose to stand in solidarity with, still have the freedom (and privilege) to make that choice..
