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
Nothingness and empty can swell in a way that we soundtrack our own existence. As “Fulton Street I” builds on La Dispute’s Panorama, Jordan Dreyer’s screaming voice sounds like his soul is exiting his body with fear. The Michigan-based post-hardcore band’s most subdued record yet is also their most intense. 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
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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Burger-A-Day 