The hardest part about poetry is that so many great poems come from loss. Michael Lee’s poetry is often haunted by a great sense of loss, and his ruminations on memory, death, and recovery are often difficult to process, as they are so loaded with weight. In his first full-length collection The Only Worlds We Know, Lee memorializes those he’s lost in one of the most emotional collections in recent memory. Continue reading
Adrienne Novy is one of the country’s most exciting young poets. Her debut collection Crowd Surfing With God (published by Half Mystic Press) is sure to resonant with anyone who’s ever found community in a record, moshpit, or one line from a song. We got a chance to speak with Novy about her poetry, religion, and pop punk. Continue reading
Andrea Gibson is a very good poet. Their album Hey Galaxy made a pretty large personal impact, and their previous books have generally been pretty good. This is why Take Me With You feels like such a lazy cash in. It’s an attempt to sell a very pretty book to an audience that won’t digest poetry in a more traditional form. Continue reading
I didn’t really like Andrea Gibson’s Hey Galaxy on first listen, because it didn’t seem like an album that was meant for me. Gibson is one of the most famous performance poets in the world, and they’ve written a number of books and albums that are leagues more popular than other spoken word artists. Gibson tackles a number of women’s and queer issues in their work, which is why it hadn’t really impacted me, but upon listening to this album again and again, I realized that this is an album that is just as much to inform cis, straight men as it is to give voice to the community Gibson comes from. Continue reading
It almost feels like every day someone tells me that they want to start listening to podcasts, and since it’s become a regular medium, you can find podcasts about literally anything. I’ve listened to podcasts about everything from tech to crying. There really is a podcast for everyone, whether you need information, a laugh, or an emotional reaction. Here are some of the best new podcasts and veterans that have kept up the good work:
Alix McAlpine’s podcast is simple enough on the surface, and it’s certainly not the first dating podcast. The premise is Alix goes on first dates, then discusses them with her friend, while creating a list of qualities she’d like her ideal partner to have. Occasionally, it’s funny, but McAlpine is doing more than just gossiping about her dates. She’s really exploring what it’s like navigating the dating world, as a millennial, with dating apps, and as a young adult. It’s a mostly transparent look into the dating world, and it provides so much insight to those single among us.
Hanif Abdurraqib is one of the most unique voices in modern journalism and poetry. His 2016 poetry collection The Crown Ain’t Worth Much was a standout last year, and his often calm delivery of poetry is hypnotic. Like Crown, this essay collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is a beautiful meditation on pop culture, race, personal history, and the places where those conversations meet. Abdurraqib sculpts his prose in a conversationally engaging but also comforting tone. Continue reading
I feel like the problem with the current wave of poetry is medium. Many of the today’s poet are made famous through slam videos going viral and easily-digestible Instagram word bites that have collected a following of new poetry readers that wouldn’t have had access to poetry previously.
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I can’t support the notion that the supernatural entity known as It takes on the form of a clown because clowns are enticing to children. No child has unironically enjoyed the presence of a clown since the vaudevillian days of the 1930s. People have been afraid of clowns for years, even before Tim Curry decided to put on a red nose. If you were one of those people who saw Stephen King’s It (1990) as a kid and cite it as the source of your childhood nightmares, I highly recommend watching it again, now, as an adult. Upon second viewing, you might come to realize that not only is it not very frightening, but it’s also rather dated and not particularly good. In this era of remake after remake after remake, this is a rare example of an early 90s relic that was due for an upgrade. And that’s because the story and the concept is actually compelling- the 1990 version just didn’t do much apart from traumatize some now-twenty somethings and give Tim Curry ample scenery to chew on. And this project has been in the works since 2009- Cary Fukunaga, the original director, dropped out due to “creative differences”, the script was rewritten, most of the actors were re-cast a week before filming…after all of that chaos it’s hard to believe they were able to pull the project together without making it too much of a messy combination of Fukunaga’s vision and Muschietti’s. But they did it, and they did it well. And maybe the delay in production was a blessing in disguise because it has been exactly 27 years since the release of the original miniseries- accurately matching the timeline of It’s resurgence from the depths of the sewers to consume the flesh of the innocent. So that’s nice. Continue reading
Before the film adaptation’s release, here’s some insight into Jeannette Walls’ modern classic The Glass Castle.
Spending another week on The New York Times’ Bestseller List and on it’s way to theatres, The Glass Castle continues to be a memoir that holds the public’s attention. If for some reason you managed to escape the media storm surrounding the movie, Glass Castle is the memoir of Jeannette Walls, currently a successful writer and journalist in New York, but once a girl living a rootless lifestyle with two erratic parents. Glass Castle has been out since 2005, but I find when a book holds the public’s attention for this long without fanfare and merchandise of midnight releases and chest tattoos, it’s important to ask why. Continue reading
Hi all, over the summer, you probably know that I started my website/blog, BurgerADay.com. The original goal for BurgerADay was to post some form of content at least once a day, but due to my new job, it’s become increasingly difficult to regularly post to BurgerADay. For 2017, in addition to finding a way to continue my original goal, I have 2 new goals: 1. I want to get more visitors for BurgerADay (maybe monetize it, somehow?), and 2. Get more writers for a variety of topics.
I feel the second goal is necessary in order to reach goal one and continue the original one, thus I’m searching for writers. I’m seeking people who are passionate about any of the following: movies, TV, politics, fitness, food, books, beverages, celebrities, restaurants, pop culture, tech, comedy, theatre, music, sports or anything that can be of interest to others. If you can write competently about one or more of these topics and you’re looking for a place to showcase some writing, BurgerADay is the place for you. The ideal BurgerADay writer has a wide knowledge of pop culture, a sense of humor and interesting, original ideas. Submit the Google form below and send an email with 2-4 writing samples to burgeradayofficial@gmail.com. Currently, BurgerADay is unable to provide payment to writers.
Burger-A-Day 