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New Poetry & Stuff

I’ve got several goodies to share!

1. “Miss Piggy: Our lady of Owning That Shit” was published in Vol III, Issue 4 of Pittsburgh Poetry Houses. They publish beautiful little broadsides of poetry, which are displayed in little houses and offered for free in the local area before being shared online.

2. Bekah and Shannon Steimel reprinted “Ursula: Our Lady of Unrepentant Self Possession” followed by an interview in which I discuss my writing process, what I’m reading, and other such things.

3. “Welkin Waltz,” a collaborative poem by Laura Madeline Wiseman and I is up at Thirteen Myna Birds.  It’s a venue for dark poetry that I’ve loved for a long time, so it’s an honor to be included.

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News! Taking Over the New Books in Poetry Podcast

New Books in Poetry

I’m stoked to let you all know that Athena Dixon and I are taking over hosting duties for the New Books in Poetry podcast!

The podcast is part of the New Books Network, which reaches about 30,000 people a day and listeners download over a million episodes a month. The New Books in Poetry podcast itself has been around since 2011 and has featured a variety of poets from different backgrounds. The podcast has been on a bit of a hiatus. Now, we’re excited to be starting it up again.

Athena has already completed her first episode, in which she speaks with Vernon Keeve III about his book Southern Migrant Mixtape (Nomadic Press, 2018). Of his work, she states:

Memoir comes in many forms, be it poetry or prose. Keeve’s work is a bridge between both worlds. In a manner that is simultaneously universal and intimate, his book is an unflinching view at what it is to be black, queer, disenfranchised, jubilant, and resilient. Via his deft pen, Keeve turns his focus on how his own personal history is deeply connected to, and is bolstered by, the black experience in society.

It is via this collection, Keeve hopes to create a legacy for the story of his family, his culture, and the future. As he writes in “The decomposition of Emmett,”

There is a dis-
ease in the land.

This collection dissects the diss, the unease, and the sickness of American generations as a means of healing and reconciliation.

Be sure to check out the episode!

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Poet Spotlight: Chelsea Margaret Bodnar on horror and the dilemma of female power

Chelsea Margaret Bodnar is made of blood, meat, and bones — the usual suspects. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Bennington Review, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Freezeray, Leopardskin & Limes, Menacing Hedge, and NANO Fiction, among others.

You recently published your debut collection of poetry, Basement Gemini (Hyacinth Girl Press). Tell us a bit about the chapbook and how it came into being.

Well, I wrote Basement Gemini at a time when I was thinking very extensively about The Ring. I think it’s a fascinating movie, and no, I haven’t seen the original Japanese version. I’m a straight-up American Ring poseur. Anyways, The Ring is really interesting to me because of the ambiguity of its message. The takeaway is essentially that a little girl has been abused and ultimately murdered, but the twist is that she was presumably inherently evil the whole time, and you end up with this weird message/ethical dilemma about misplaced empathy, feminine power, and nature vs. nurture. At the end of the day, though, no matter how evil and powerful she was, Samara couldn’t get herself out of that well.

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Culture Consumption: October 2018

Hi, lovelies. Here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games. 🙂

Books

Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha WellsIt’s been a phenomenal month of reading. In addition to Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (discussed here and here), I read Artificial Condition, the second book in Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries. After the events of All Systems Red, Murderbot goes looking into its dark past in an attempt to remember just what happened on the day when a number of humans were killed. Of course, there are problems along the way.  I read this novella all in one sitting. I love Murderbot and all his anxieties and the way he somehow tries to do what’s right by people, even when all he wants to do is hide away somewhere and watch vids. So far, there are two more books in this series and I’m looking forward to reading them.

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