Genre: Poetry

The Houses on My Block: Mutabilis Press

United States of Writing
4.14.20

Last week I started highlighting the publishing houses here in Houston by looking at Arte Público Press. Today I want to write about Mutabilis Press. This nonprofit literary press is all about supporting the poetry world, especially poets in the greater Houston area.

The press was founded in 2003 by poet and artist Carolyn Tourney Florek and is a great source of literary work, including first books from some of the best poets that Houston has to offer. I personally own Why Me? (Mutabilis Press, 2009), the debut collection of poetry by Inprint founder Rich Levy, and it’s a great collection. Mutabilis also publishes poetry anthologies and makes it a point to find ways to gather as many Houston area poets as possible to write on a variety of themes. Their latest anthology, Enchantment of the Ordinary, edited by Galveston poet and dear friend of mine John Gorman, collects poems from Houston area authors with a connection to the state of Texas. I love the idea behind this anthology.

It is a blessing to be able to thumb through the anthologies and poetry collections published by Mutabilis and find the names and words of poets who I call friend. If you have the means to support this wonderful press, please take a look at their catalog and order books from them directly or from your local independent bookstore. Either way your purchase helps keep the lights on for these publishing houses.

Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.

Oh So Odd

The Time Is Now
4.14.20

Earlier this year, the Dutch dance company Nederlands Dans Theater performed at New York City Center as part of their sixtieth season. Included in their program was the U.S. premiere of Walk the Demon, a 2018 piece by Marco Goecke that featured sharp, small, and abrasive movements. Drawing inspiration from this choreographic style, try writing a poem using only single-syllable words to mimic short and sharp actions. What content do you find best fits this stylistic endeavor? See what unfolds from this syllabic limitation.

For the Love of Boys

United States of Writing
4.13.20

Temperatures are rising in the Midwest in these first weeks of a long-awaited spring as we continue to track whether COVID-19 cases are reducing. Michigan is still under a stay-at-home order, which makes it difficult to enjoy the warm weather but perfect for sitting down and reading some more books by Detroit authors.

For the Love of Boys by Imani Nichele is a collection of poetry written during her term as the 2018 Detroit youth poet laureate. The chapbook opens with a thoughtful preface that helps frame the book for the reader: “When you approach this body of work, I ask that you come knowing this is not heartbreak or about bitterness or a bite back at love gone sour. This within itself is not a cry for a father. It is coming of age. It is my capacity to hold men broadening, within and through different relationships.” She further describes this collection as an examination of how when boys transition into men, they are allowed space to still operate in boyhood. This touches on her thoughts of linear time being meaningless when becoming an adult in these lines:

“All of the clocks are broken here / in a tight room / Only enough space for our bodies to be pendulum”

I love the images associated with the body in this collection as exemplified in these lines:

“I imagine my father is a bloodless boy, with running feet / split-chested & / picking everything broken from inside of him”

Nichele further makes efforts to better understand her body and standing in the world with two poetic definitions of disambiguation that split the collection into thirds. In these, Nichele sees her body as a weapon and “full of answers and opinions and dying things.”

I am so proud of this young voice! Nichele has since sold out of her chapbook, but has announced that her first full-length manuscript, If You Must Know, is coming soon. I look forward to the release of this collection and will share it with you once it is out!

Imani Nichele, author of the chapbook For the Love of Boys.
 
Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

Hotbed #224

Caption: 

“Mama was an elevator girl at Montgomery Ward’s in Trenton, New Jersey, summer of 1952...” In this video with poet Alondra Uribe, Nikky Finney reads “Hotbed #224” from her collection Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry (TriQuarterly Books, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Nikky Finney
Alondra Uribe
reading
Hotbed #224
Page One
May/June 2020
TriQuarterly Books
2020
Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry

City Moon by Francisco Aragón

Caption: 

“Perfect disc of moon, huge / and simmering / low on the capital’s filthy horizon…” This installment from the Unamuno Poem Project video series features Francisco Aragón’s poem “City Moon,” recited in English by Joseph Fasano and in Spanish by Jorge García. Aragón’s new collection, After Rubén (Red Hen Press, 2020), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Francisco Aragón
Unamuno Poem Project
short film
Page One
May/June 2020

Deadline Approaches for the Catamaran Poetry Prize

G&A: The Contest Blog
4.9.20

Submissions are open for the 2020 Catamaran Poetry Prize. Sponsored by the literary nonprofit Catamaran, whose mission is “to capture the vibrant and creative West Coast spirit,” the annual award is given for a poetry manuscript written by a poet living in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, or Hawaii. The winning poet will receive $1,000 and their manuscript will be published by Catamaran.

Using only the online submission system, submit a poetry collection of 60 to 100 pages with a $35 entry fee by April 20. Poet, playwright, and translator Zack Rogow will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Finalists for the 2020 poetry prize will be announced on June 1. The winner will be announced by June 30, and their collection is expected to be published in November of this year. A book launch and reading, featuring the winner and finalists, will take place in the fall. Previous winners of the award are poets Susan Browne and Michelle Bitting.

An Interview With Wanda Coleman

Caption: 

“It was almost effortless. It was an amazing experience because it was as though the poems were writing me.” In this Poetry.LA interview from 2013, the late Wanda Coleman speaks about the moment she felt like a poet, her career as a soap opera writer, and how she finds enjoyment in writing. Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems (Black Sparrow Press, 2020), a new collection of Coleman’s poetry edited by Joshua Bodwell and Terrance Hayes, is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Wanda Coleman
Poetry.LA interview series
interview
2013
Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems
Black Sparrow Books
2020
Page One
May/June 2020

The Houses on My Block: Arte Público Press

United States of Writing
4.7.20

It gives me great pleasure to highlight the many aspects of the literary world that exist here in the Houston area through this blog. I feel it is important to keep this work going, especially now during this global crisis, to provide a sense of community as well as a little break from the news.

Starting this month, I’ll be writing about some of the publishing houses here in Houston, including Arte Público Press. Founded in 1979 by Nicolas Kanellos, Arte Público Press is the largest and most established publisher of Latino literature in the United States. Housed at the University of Houston, where Kanellos is a professor of Hispanic Studies, the press has helped launch the careers of notable authors like Sandra Cisneros, whose debut novel, The House on Mango Street, was published by the press; Miguel Piñero, who cofounded the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City; and Obie Award–winning playwright Luis Valdez.

The press also launched the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Program to catalog lost Latinx writings from the American colonial period through 1960. They then branched out into bilingual books for children and young adults with their imprint Piñata Books.

Arte Público Press continues their mission to bring Hispanic literature to more audiences through their programs and books. They publish thirty books a year, so if you got the time, take a look at their massive catalog and consider ordering some of these wonderful books (including the recent release of Richard Z. Santos’s debut novel). Trust me, it’ll be worth your while.

Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.

I Have Wasted My Life

Caption: 

“The shiver underneath / my ruined shirt, the worm / eating of things in the dirt / the dead and the living.” In this 2019 video taken during his residency at Further Troutbeck: The Poetry Society, Justin Phillip Reed reads “I Have Wasted My Life” from his second collection, The Malevolent Volume, out today from Coffee House Press.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Justin Phillip Reed
The Malevolent Volume
Coffee House Press
I Have Wasted My Life
2020

Spring Rain

The Time Is Now
4.7.20

“Caught in the rain today, I recall that couple kissing and holding each other infinitely close in the rain one dark evening under the nearly invisible trees,” wrote Paul Valéry in 1910, in a notebook included in The Idea of Perfection: The Poetry of Paul Valéry, translated from the French by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody and forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux this month. Draw inspiration from rainy scenes in poetry such as William Carlos Williams’s “Spring Storm,” Sara Teasdale’s “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and Emily Dickinson’s “Like Rain it sounded till it curved” and write a poem that captures a moment in the rain, one that seems quiet or private but also carries emotional weight. Is there something poignant, parallel, or contradictory between the subject of the poem and the themes of rebirth and renewal that are conventionally associated with springtime?

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