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#THEACCOMPLICES: Our Forthcoming Spring 2020 Titles
News

#THEACCOMPLICES: Our Forthcoming Spring 2020 Titles

by The Accomplices
written by The Accomplices

SPRING 2020:

be/trouble
by bridgette bianca

POETRY / AFRICAN-AMERICAN

This is the Los Angeles not shown on television and movies: the everyday minituatea of Black Angeleno life. If you’re lucky enough to be a part of it then you know this heritage was handed from one generation to the next.

bridgette bianca moves beyond witness and holds us accountable in the harsh-tender way we do when we love someone, but love ourselves more. White and institutional nonsense, beware. This collection is essential to understanding what it means to be alive in the United States of America in 2019.

–Sara Borjas, Heart Like a Window Mouth Like a Cliff

 

The Depression
by Mathias Svalina & Jon Pack

POETRY / SHORT FICTION / PHOTOGRAPHY

A dream-like collaboration of fables and photographs, and a surreal and shifting deep-dive into clinical depression, THE DEPRESSION absurdly expresses the mind and life as we both know it and don’t.

I went on a state-sponsored summer exchange trip to Germany when I was 16. I arrived in Munich with 49 other kids from all across the US and was picked up by my very excited host family, who screamed like they won the lottery when they saw me. I was then spirited to their home for lunch, a short walk in a fragrant wood, introductions to the giant family dog Oskar, dinner with the punk older sister and her staring boyfriend, then back home to unpack and crawl into bed. I hardly slept on the flight and had never felt so tired nor so discombobulated, being newly arrived among kind and strange strangers. The floor seemed to undulate, my bones felt like they were made of acid. Everything shone with brilliant unfamiliarity. I was alive in a different way–more fragile, unnerved, a sense of absurdity like a veil over my face… And that’s what this book feels like in me. Hugs.

–Sueyeun Juliette Lee, author of No Comet, That Serpent in the Sky Means Noise

Review of Soham Patel’s to afar from afar
BooksReview

Review of Soham Patel’s to afar from afar

by The Accomplices
written by The Accomplices

A great review of to afar from afar by Soham Patel is up on The Bind.

From “The Apparitions of Language: Reading Soham Patel’s to afar from afar“”

6. Meanwhile, the poem “in airplane” finds chaos and confusion in the presence of violence. Drone patterns interrupt the structural integrity of language. Thoughts form in strata. A triangle breaks the poem into clusters. Lines are arranged in ambiguity. I felt briefly lost. I didn’t know in which direction I was supposed to move, what path my eyes were supposed to follow. “in airplane” evokes this feeling of uncertainty, brought on by the presence of a foreign object. More than that—a drone, a symbol of American intervention, the icon of globalization, of violence committed from a distance.

to afar from afar

Interview with Accomplice Soham Patel
Interview

Interview with Accomplice Soham Patel

by CCM
written by CCM

1. What’s your favorite song to dance to?
Lalji Pandey’s “Jimmy Jimmy Ajaa Ajaa” from Bollywood’s Disco Dancer movie circa the early 1980s.

2. Describe your personal hell.
I am sorry I don’t understand.

3. What’s something that always makes you laugh?
Some of my dog’s innovatively coy begging ways and almost anything Gene from Bob’s Burgers says.

4. You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
I guess I’d just choose this moment and live out the rest of my years from here.

5. What’s a gif that you can relate to?
I don’t know but I like the ones where there’s animals and/or dancing.

6. You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
The Lichtenberg Figures (but I only know that from poetry) or I might die?

7. It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
Calm.

8. What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
I mean—in-house bias but—the Accomplices’ three cat, ramen hat picture is pretty great.

 

 

 

 

 


9. Where did you write most of your book? Why?
The compositions were mostly written on a Sony Vaio laptop circa 2002 because my parents so very generously purchased it for me as a happy birthday/congratulations and good luck to you in MA school gift. As a revision strategy, I rewrote each poem by hand in a large notebook as well.

10. What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
One strength is that I always believe in writing but a struggle is that I don’t always believe in my own writing.

11. Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway?
My writing process changes but it is most always driven by ritual and revision. Like for example I’ve been blocked, or very very slow, in coming up with new stuff for about fifteen months now; so for the time being what doesn’t work is putting pressure on myself to make something new and hurried, reading and rereading (my stuff and other writing) works.

 

SOHAM PATEL is a Kundiman fellow and an assistant editor at Fence and The Georgia Review. Her chapbooks include and nevermind the storm (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2013) New Weather Drafts (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2016), and in airplane and other poems (oxeye, 2018).

Interview with Accomplice Joseph Grantham
Interview

Interview with Accomplice Joseph Grantham

by CCM
written by CCM

 

1. What’s your favorite song to dance to?
One time I was at a party and “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” by the Talking Heads came on and I leaned over to the person next to me and said, “This is my favorite song.” And she said, “Everyone likes this song.” That made me feel really bad. So now I don’t share this kind of information with anyone. I can’t tell you.

2. Describe your personal hell.
My personal hell would be living in a society that doesn’t value writing/art so that I’d have to get a job doing something that I have no interest in doing for eight hours everyday because I need a special kind of paper that will allow me to buy food and water and shelter so that I don’t die.

3. What’s something that always makes you laugh?
When I’m at work (I work at a pharmacy) and I can’t understand what a patient is saying to me. So I keep saying “What?” “What?” “What?” And then I give up and laugh and then they laugh too. And no one gets what they want.

4. You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
I’d choose about 5 or 6 hours ago. I was in my bed, half awake, barely knew who or where I was. It felt amazing.

5. What’s a gif that you can relate to?
I can’t. I don’t know what those are. I’m out of touch.

6. You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
I’ll be okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here forever.

7. It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
If it’s snowing outside, I feel like a million bucks or I feel like Joseph Grantham.

8. What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
I like this picture of my friend Bud Smith holding my cat, Tammy Wynette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Where did you write most of your book? Why?
I wrote most of my book at a bookstore in Manhattan called McNally Jackson. I wrote it because I didn’t know what else to do. I had to write it. I was pissed off and sad and the book was my friend. And it gave me something to do at work besides “work.” “Work” is boring and dangerous and not very rewarding.

10. What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
My strength is that I believe in what I do, and when I’ve written something good, I know it’s good. I don’t get bogged down by much. I don’t do this because I want an end-product, I do this because what else am I going to do? I take the work seriously. It isn’t a joke, it isn’t carefree, it’s work and I like it. Don’t fuck around. Only a little bit. My struggle is the internet. God, I can’t wait to be off the internet one day. It’s a distraction. And it’s cliquey. It’s mostly a waste of time.

11. Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway?
If I’m home, I go upstairs and sit at a desk and drink a lot of coffee and bang things out. And then come back to those pages later, the next time I have a chance. And I edit them until they’re good. This usually works. If I’m at work, I use a pen and write on whatever is available. I get interrupted by phone calls a lot and that is frustrating. All of this usually works, if it ever isn’t working then I just read a book and remember that there’s no rush. Keep the fans a little hungry.

 

JOSEPH GRANTHAM was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up in California. He read books for awhile and wrote bad stories and poems and went to school. Not much happened. He lost his virginity when he was 18. He got his BA from Bennington College. He still reads books and writes. He runs Disorder Press with his sister.

Interview with Accomplice Rocío Carlos
Interview

Interview with Accomplice Rocío Carlos

by CCM
written by CCM

1.   What’s your favorite song to dance to?
That depends. With my sister, any Sonora Dinamita song. At a family wedding, “El Sinaloense.” As part of a folklorico performance (I was a dancer, for 16 years), I love a good northern polka, a son jarocho or jaliscience. I like Blondie. And Prince. Pop and R&B and Hip Hop. I like that part of the night when you’re really sweaty and they bust out that really guilty pleasure and next thing you know you are touching your toes and shouting the lyrics. And when I’m home alone, I pretend I am an ice skater and twirl to Love on the Brain by riri.

2.   Describe your personal hell.
Watching my parents age.

3.   What’s something that always makes you laugh?
When Ana follows me around making a song out of whatever I’m doing. She writes good songs.

4.   You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
History and the future all suck. So, I’d find the present again.

5.   What’s a gif that you can relate to?
Homer as a toasty cinnamon bun. I love getting under covers. SO. MUCH.

6.   You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
I get a cool new birthmark on the entire left side of my body. It looks like a purple firework. Also, I can now understand and speak every language in the world because the lightning scrambled my brain’s language center. So I have to hide this gift so the pentagon doesn’t disappear me and use me to decipher foreign intelligence. I have thought about this since I was a child : )

7.   It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
Happy to be warm, inside.

8.   What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
Any picture of Scout my amazing sassy calico. Or do you mean like a famous cat. Whatever. Scout is famous.

9.   Where did you write most of your book? Why?
Here at home, outside in my yard or on my ratty blue couch covered in cat hair or at my wooden table.

10.   What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
Um. Doing it. (Furrowing brows over here, trying not to be a sarcastic ass). I have a flair for impactful turns of phrases? A line that might haunt you a little? I’m bad at big picture stuff with a book-arc and such.

11.   Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway? jajajajajaja (me laughing in Spanish), like, people have a Plan? Okay, okay. I’ll get this preoccupation and it’ll eat away at my brain for a few months. Then I’ll start to try to articulate it to myself. Then I might write some stuff down. Then I’ll abandon it for months. Then someone who loves me will force me to re-engage it. Then, if someone asks to publish some or all of it I’m really screwed. Then I camp out on the couch, the table, outside in the yard with whiskey or a pop playlist or a box of tissues, swatting mosquitoes or freezing my ass off and crying and being sullen. Then my back is ruined and I have to go to the chiropractor and get strapped into decompression contraptions. So fun, writing books.

 

(the other house) by Rocío CarlosROCÍO CARLOS attends from the land of the chaparral. Born and raised in Los Ángeles, she is widely acknowledged to have zero short term memory but know the names of trees. Her other books include Attendance (The Operating System) and A Universal History of Infamy: Those of This America (LACMA/Golden Spike Press). She was selected as a 2003 Pen Center “Emerging Voices” fellow. She collaborates as a partner at Wirecutter Collective and is a teacher of the language arts. Her favorite trees are the olmo (elm) and aliso (sycamore).

Interview with Accomplice Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué
Interview

Interview with Accomplice Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué

by CCM
written by CCM

1.      What’s your favorite song to dance to?
“This Must be the Place” by Talking Heads, though I sound like the perfect stereotype of someone in their twenties.

2.      Describe your personal hell.
An UberPool where the other passengers are wearing perfume.

3.      What’s something that always makes you laugh?
Susan Sontag shady frustrated interview/Camille Paglia’s maniacal response. If you haven’t watched, brace yourself for a life-changing video:

4.      You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
Some time in Ancient Egypt. I don’t know, but if you have a society that lasts like 3,000 years, you must be doing SOMETHING right.
5.      What’s a gif that you can relate to?

6.      You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
Widespread tissue damage, cardiac arrhythmia, and loss of consciousness.

7.      It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
Calm, a bit trapped, but in a good mood to read.

8.      What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
Any picture of my cats Beef and Panini. Here’s one:

9.      Where did you write most of your book? Why?
I wrote most of Losing Miami in my partially windowless apartment in Philadelphia, far away from Miami. Every so often, when I was home for vacation, I’d go to the beach to take notes. The beach, as it were, is the scene of the moving coastline and the potential sinking, even as it is the emblem of Miami’s potential for *fun*.

10.   What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
I think I’m good at conceiving of a project’s ability to scale up or down, which means conceiving of a book’s contours comes easily to me. I think I’m a better book writer than I am a poem writer. I struggle a bit with making the individual parts of a book-machine (aka the poems) splendidly functional. Instead, I make them fragmented and unapproachable, so that one has to look across poems to find magic and meaning. A struggle and a strength!

11.   Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway?
I write late at night, usually in spurts. It’s a very undecorated scene of writing. I wish I woke up with the sun to write in longhand or some bullshit, but I really don’t. I open Microsoft Word after my partner has gone to bed and I try to spit something out. Eventually, something clicks and a book comes out. Hoorah!

GABRIEL OJEDA-SAGUÉ is a gay, Latino Leo raised in Miami, currently living in Chicago. He is the author of the poetry books Jazzercise is a Language ( The Operating System, 2018), on the exercise craze of the 1980s, and Oil and Candle(Timeless, Infinite Light, 2016), on ritual and racism. He is also the author of chapbooks on gay sex, Cher, the Legend of Zelda, and anxious bilingualism. He is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of Chicago.

Read and Listen to “Lies I Tell” by Sara Borjas
Friends

Read and Listen to “Lies I Tell” by Sara Borjas

by Writ Large Press
written by Writ Large Press

Imagine the beautiful surprise this morning when we received today’s Poem-A-Day (from poets.org) and it was from our dear friend and incredible poet Sara Borjas. It’s called “Lies I Tell” and you should all read it. Here’s an excerpt, followed by a link to the whole piece:

 

As a girl, my mother slept in a shack with no windows and one door: that is the truth. My grandma would slam windows: truth. A mother’s hands are stronger than God: truth. We often use fruit to describe a bruise, like plum or blackberry: truth. My mother’s window blackberried: truth. My mother’s door peached: truth. She loves peaches: that is the truth. My father could not stand them in our house: that is the truth

“Lies I Tell” by Sara Borjas

ICON Release Party – 6/22 @ Civic Center Studios
Events

ICON Release Party – 6/22 @ Civic Center Studios

by Writ Large Press
written by Writ Large Press

Join us in celebration for our dear friend Dougie’s new book! It’s a stunning work that you won’t soon forget. In Downtown LA.

The Accomplices are proud to introduce the new work from F Douglas Brown, ICON. Come celebrate the release with special guest readers, art, live music and a DJ dance party.

About ICON:

Brown, inspired by Lawrence’s 1938 panel series, which observes both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, brings ICON, a biographical/poetic reflection doing the task of considering and re-considering role models, heroes. Through conversations with poets, pop stars, comic book sensations, and of course, the historical characters Douglass, Tubman and Lawrence, Brown distills this discussion into an examination of the self.

What folks are saying about ICON:

“Here is a poet who tracks a formidable lodestar in his chosen namesake, Frederick Douglass, and wrestles with his legacy through illuminative ekphrasis, dedicated truth-telling, and the indomitable will to claim one’s identity from a world that seeks to negate it. Writing with self-discovery through a multitude of form and historical insight, Brown charts a Tubman-trod course across millennia, culture, and language. Through his multihued blood-line that flows with memory to sing the kill away, we find ourselves delivered into a daring rendition of humanity at its best despite the worst of circumstances.”

– Tyehimba Jess, author of Olio and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize

Books for sale will be on-site.
No Cover, Just Love.

hand
Books

#CopingWith: 13 Poems in Persona

by CCM
written by CCM

Persona is one of my favorite techniques and crafts to work with in writing. Here are 13 poems that are written through persona:

1. Patricia Smith – “Skinhead”
2. Leah Umansky – “Khaleesi Says”
3. Linda Bierds – “The Ghost Trio”
4. John Berryman – “Dream Song 29”
5. James Tate – “The Motorcyclists”
6. Kevin Young – “Reward”
7. Margaret Atwood – “Pig Song”
8. Hannah Kucharzak – “Anxious Diva”
9. Richard Brautigan – “Trout Fishing in America”
10. Cornelius Eady – “Nina’s Blues”
11. A. Van Jordan – “From”
12. C.D. Wright – “One Big Self (excerpt)”
13. Louise Gluck – “Vespers”

Joanna C. Valente is the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Xenos,  and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault.

Joel Filipe
News

#CopingWith: 13 Poems, Essays & Fiction That Will Break Your Bones

by CCM
written by CCM

These pieces need no introduction, except that they’ll rip your organs out.

1. Lauren Milici – “Two Poems” (Yes Poetry)
2. Alexis Groulx- “My Body Dysmorphia” (Luna Luna Magazine)
3. Sarah Jordan – “Our Father Dave” (Cosmonauts Avenue)
4. Nathan McClain – “Against Melancholy” (Tinderbox Poetry)
5. Nadia Alexis – “How to Be Friends With a Sex Worker” (Tinderbox Poetry)
6. Isabel Sobral Campos – “Three Poems” (Typo Magazine)
7. Maggie Queeney – “Love Wildered/Re-Wilding” (Typo Magazine)
8. Sean H. Doyle – “Hallucinatorium” (Storychord)
9. Juliet Escoria – “Five Poems” (Fanzine)
10. Isobel O’Hare – “Rhiannon” (Entropy)
11. Hannah Cohen – “Self-Portrait as Grendel” (Calamus Journal)
12. Sonya Vatomsky – “It’s Time for Goth Culture to Embrace the Gender Identities of All Its Members” (Slate)
13. Meredith Talusan – “Why Can’t My Famous Gender Nonconforming Friends Get Laid?” (VICE)

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016) and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Brooklyn Magazine, Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, BUST, and elsewhere.

books
BooksNews

#CopingWith: 13 Poems You Should Be Teaching

by CCM
written by CCM

These are poems that I have either taught or plan to teach in my poetry workshops. If you are an educator, add them to your curriculum. If you aren’t, read them and send them to your friends.

1. Mathias Svalina – “One Night” (Poets.org)
2. Lisa Ciccarello – “At Night, By Marriage” (Poets.org)
3. Tarfia Faizullah – “Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito” (Poetry Foundation)
4. Sherwin Bitsui – “River” (Poetry Foundation)
5. Omar Sakr – “Ghosting the Ghetto” (Cosmonauts Avenue)
6. Sam Sax – “Doctrine” (Poets.org)
7. Nils Michals – “The Key, the Lock” (PANK)
8. Srikanth Reddy – “Four Poems” (Jacket Magazine)
9. Kim Hyesoon – “Three Poems” (Asymptote)
10. Natalie Eilbert – “Imprecation“ (Poetry Society of America)
11. Solmaz Sharif – “Social Skills Training” (Buzzfeed)
12. Charif Shanahan – “Wanting to be White” (Lit Hub)
13. Richard Siken – “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” (Poetry Foundation)

Joanna C. Valente is the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Xenos, and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault.

stack of old books in home interior
Books

#CopingWith: 13 Poets Writing About Resistance

by CCM
written by CCM

We all could stand to read more poetry. I say this as a poet who is immersed in poetry daily. You can never have too much of it–and personally, I don’t understand why more people don’t read poetry more. It’s short, which means you can digest a poem (the first time) anywhere. It’s all very momentary. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t go back to the poem later, and reread it with new eyes.

This is why I’m rounding up 13 poets writing about resistance whose work I admire. We can always cope with more poetry, am I right?

1. Danez Smith – “You’re Dead America” (Buzzfeed)
2. Robert Balun – “No-Titled” (Yes Poetry)
3. Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib – “The Day After the Election I Did Not Go Outside” (The New Inquiry)
4. Catherine Valdez – “Three Poems” (Heavy Feather Review)
5. Jen DeGregorio – “Three Poems” (Heavy Feather Review)
6. Guillermo Filice Castro – “Poems & Photographs” (Tarpaulin Sky)
7. Jennifer S. Cheng – “Inside Our Killing” (Tarpaulin Sky)
8. Jericho Brown – “Bullet Points” (Buzzfeed)
9. Yehuda Amichai – “The Place Where We Are Right” (On Being)
10. Maya Angelou – “On the Pulse of Morning” (University of Wisconsin)
11. W.H. Auden – “As I Walked Out One Evening” (Poets.org)
12. Octavio Paz – “Proem” (Poets.org)
13. Anne Waldman – “Endtime” (Poets.org)

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions) and the editor of “A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault” (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, Apogee, Spork The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, The James Franco Review, and elsewhere. They also teach workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

books
News

#CopingWith: 13 Women Poets You Need to Read

by CCM
written by CCM

We all could stand to read more poetry. I say this as a poet who is immersed in poetry daily. You can never have too much of it–and personally, I don’t understand why more people don’t read poetry more. It’s short, which means you can digest a poem (the first time) anywhere. It’s all very momentary. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t go back to the poem later, and reread it with new eyes.

This is why I’m rounding up 13 women-identifying poets whose work I admire. We can always cope with more poetry, am I right?

1. Abigail Welhouse – “Dawson Gets a Haircut” (Brooklyn Poets)
2. Camille Rankine – “History” (Poetry Foundation)
3. Patricia Spears Jones – “What Beauty Does” (Poetry Foundation)
4. Monica Ferrell – “Emma Bovary” (Poets.org)
5. Marisa Crawford – “Manic Panic” (Poets.org)
6. Rachel Eliza Griffiths – “Dear America” (Four Way Review)
7. Nikki Wallschlaeger – “Blue Tuesdays” (The Feminist Wire)
8. Emily Skillings – “Fort Not” (Hyperallergic)
9. Wendy Xu – “The Window Rehearses” (PEN America)
10. Samgen Chin – “After Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” (Yes Poetry)
11. Claire Donato – “Dead Meat” (Poor Claudia)
12. Elisabet Velasquez – “New Brooklyn” (Brooklyn Poets)
13. Hannah Lee Jones – “Insomniac Fugue” (Superstition Review)

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions) and the editor of “A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault” (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, Apogee, Spork The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, The James Franco Review, and elsewhere. They also teach workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

janko-ferlic-174927.jpg
Books

#CopingWith: 13 New York Poets Changing the Lit Scene

by CCM
written by CCM

We all could stand to read more poetry. I say this as a poet who is immersed in poetry daily. You can never have too much of it–and personally, I don’t understand why more people don’t read poetry more. It’s short, which means you can digest a poem (the first time) on the subway, on a walk, while taking a break on work, etc. It’s all very momentary. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t go back to the poem later, and reread it with new eyes.

This is why I’m rounding up 13 New York poets whose work I love and adore–who are challenging our views on sexuality, gender, race, identity, and more. We can always cope with more poetry, am I right?

1. David Tomas Martinez – The Only Mexican (Poetry Foundation)
2. Jason Koo – No Longer See (Prelude)
3. Lisa Marie Basile – Untitled (Spork)
4. Monica Lewis – First Kiss (The Boiler Journal)
5. Katie Longofono – The Outline (Tinderbox Poetry Journal)
6. ​Shamar Hill – My Father Tells Me (Brooklyn Poets)
7. Morgan Parker – If You Are Over Staying Woke (Poetry Foundation)
8. Omotara James –  Three Women / Two Transfers and a Token / One Reincarnation (The Poetry Project)
9. Lynn Melnick – Landscape with Happily Ever After (Poets.org)
10. Nathan McClain – Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (District Lit)
11. Saeed Jones – Kudzu (Poets.org)
12. Candace Williams – Black Sonnet (Sixth Finch)
13. Amy King – Perspective (Poetry Foundation)

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions) and the editor of “A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault” (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, Apogee, Spork The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, The James Franco Review, and elsewhere. They also teach workshops at Brooklyn Poets.