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
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
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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Rock biographies are very often boring. Sure, the tales of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll are enticing, but after reading stories from Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses, Kiss, and countless others, all the stories seem to blend together. The first rock biography I ever read was No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins about the life of Jim Morrison. Your first foray into rock literature is always unforgettable, but following reading Slash, Stairway to Heaven, No Regrets, and many others, I realized that sex and drugs were only so interesting. The one exception to this rule had always been Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell, until Laura Jane Grace and Dan Ozzi published Tranny. Continue reading
Bob Dylan will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American Song tradition.”
“He can be read and should be read, and is a great poet in the English tradition” https://t.co/g7CnFBlkNB
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 13, 2016
“Of course he does, he just got it!” https://t.co/dzo9bkmRBP
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 13, 2016
Burger-A-Day 