The shortlist for the prestigious Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, which carries prize money worth $10,000, was made public this morning. Our poetry editor Chris Tse is ecstatic. Here’s a sobering statistic: since 2001, only two non-Pākehā poets have won the poetry category at the book awards – David Eggleton (who is of … Continue reading Please excuse Chris Tse as he freaks out over these poetry finalists (via The Spinoff)
Additional Info: Wordsmith Akua Naru gives an exclusive live performance of "Poetry: How Does It Feel Now???" - a sensually exquisite, jazzy jam of spoken word from the New Haven, Connecticut hailing artist and her band, DigFlo. Information courtesy, YouTube
On Valentine’s Day 2015, Philip Levine, former poet laureate of the United States and longtime English professor at California State University, Fresno, passed away from pancreatic cancer. The New York Times obituary characterized his work as “vibrantly, angrily and often painfully alive with the sound, smell and sinew of heavy manual labor.” Levine told Bill … Continue reading Philip Levine Was a Poet of the Working Class (via Jacobin)
Additional Info: Kito Fortune, performing "Black Love". About Button: Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry. Information courtesy, YouTube
A bedrock principle of the prison abolitionist movement is that you don’t ask an incarcerated person what they’re in for. It’s more than etiquette. To eschew the identity that the punitive state assigns — which could be false — is to see someone whole. “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” … Continue reading Is Poetry magazine “platforming toxicity” or promoting the “practice of freedom”? (via The Intercept)
Additional Info: Rola Alasmar, performing at Icehouse in Minneapolis, MN. About Button: Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry. Information courtesy, YouTube
The title of Erin Belieu’s new book of poems, “Come-Hither Honeycomb” (Copper Canyon), is a compact gadget of a phrase that embodies her tinkerer’s style of found puns, verbal doodles, and word games. “Come-hither” is both invitation and command, an adjective that evolved from, but clings to, the imperative. It modifies the word it mirrors, … Continue reading Big Laughs and Hard Silences in Erin Belieu’s Poetry (via The New Yorker)
Additional Info: George The Poet reflects on the Power of Collaboration during the time of #Covid19 and recorded this poem for this years' virtual Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship. George "The Poet" Mpanga is a London-born spoken word performer of Ugandan heritage. His innovative brand of musical poetry has won him critical acclaim both … Continue reading (Video) George the Poet | The Power of Collaboration
Mark Lanegan will release a new book of 76 poems, Leaving California, this spring. His publisher, Heartworm Press, is likening the book to a sequel to 2020 memoir Sing Backwards and Weep, the brooding singer-songwriter’s gritty elegy for the grunge era in Seattle, where he was once the frontman for Screaming Trees. The book will … Continue reading Mark Lanegan’s New Poetry Book ‘Leaving California’ to Follow Up Grunge Memoir (via Rolling Stone)
Additional Info: About Button: Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry. Information courtesy, YouTube
