The Poet Salon

What's good, dearest homies. After last week's riveting conversation with Geffrey Davis about family and ethics, language and tone, we dove into "Goodnight" by Li-Young Lee—a poem that will properly mess you up. You've been warned. GEFFREY DAVIS is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions), winner of the 2018 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Revising the Storm ​(BOA Editions), winner of the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. ​A native of the Pacific Northwest, Davis lives with his family in Fayetteville, AR. He teaches at the University of Arkansas and with The Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran's low-residency MFA program. Davis also serves as poetry editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.   LI-YOUNG LEE was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. He is the author of The Undressing (W. W. Norton, 2018); Behind My Eyes (W. W. Norton, 2008); Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; The City in Which I Love You (BOA Editions, 1990), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and Rose (BOA Editions, 1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, with his wife and their two sons.   REFERENCES: "Painting a Body of Loss and Love in the Proximity of an Aesthetic" by Chris Abani; Dante Micheaux

  Dearest beloved—you're back just in time to hear us chop it up about the ethics of writing (and publishing) work about family. And have a beautiful chat with beautiful poet Geffrey Davis. GEFFREY DAVIS is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions), winner of the 2018 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Revising the Storm ​(BOA Editions), winner of the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. ​A native of the Pacific Northwest, Davis lives with his family in Fayetteville, AR. He teaches at the University of Arkansas and with The Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran's low-residency MFA program. Davis also serves as poetry editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.   BOURBON IN A SMALL GOLD GLASS   “if the poem follows / you home, whiskey” —tai freedom ford, “how to get over ["when the poem flirts..."] “beauty you can stick a manicured finger / into and through, beauty that doesn’t rely / on any sentence the sun chants, it’s whiskey / swelter blown scarlet” —Patricia Smith, “Prologue—And Then She Owns You” “I inhale the perfume of the Bourbon rose, then try to separate / what is scent, sense, and what you call memory, what is emotion, where in a / dialogue like touching is it so vibratory and so absorbent of my attention and / longing, with impressions like fingerprints all over.” —Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, “Hello, The Roses” Sometimes, it’s best to just keep things simple. Sometimes, you just want bourbon in a small gold glass. This was one of those weeks! Bourbon in a Small Gold Glass pairs well with many things, including late-night talks about family, thunderstorms real and remembered, and our early spring conversation with the incredible Geffrey Davis.

What's good fam. If you're caught up, you know we sat with Casandra and discussed grief, community, obsessions, and writing across genres. This week, she brought in a lovely poem "Birds of Illegal Trade" by Benjamin Garcia, and, here, you can hear us geek out over it! CASANDRA LÓPEZ is a Chicana and California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/Luiseño) writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf and Jackstraw. She’s been selected for residencies with the School of Advanced Research and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Where Bullet Breaks was published by the Sequoyah National Research Center and her poetry collection, Brother Bullet is forthcoming from University of Arizona. She’s a founding editor of As/Us: A Space For Women Of The World  and teaches at Northwest Indian College. You can follow her on Twitter @casandramlopez.  BENJAMIN GARCIA is a Community Health Specialist who provides HIV/HCV/STD and opioid overdose prevention education to higher risk communities throughout New York’s Finger Lakes region. He had the honor of being the 2017 Latin@ Scholar at the Frost Place and the 2018 CantoMundo Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in, among others, New England Review, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Nimrod International, RHINO, Four Way Review, Newfound, The Acentos Review, Barrelhouse, Lambda Literary, Boston Review, Kenyon Review Online, Best New Poets 2016, and Gulf Coast.

Hello lovely people. This week we sat and drank with Casandra López. She schooled us on obsessions, building a poetry community, grief, and the difference between writing poetry and writing fiction. Y'all don't want to miss this. Trust.  CASANDRA LÓPEZ is a Chicana and California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/Luiseño) writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf and Jackstraw. She’s been selected for residencies with the School of Advanced Research and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Where Bullet Breaks was published by the Sequoyah National Research Center and her poetry collection, Brother Bullet is forthcoming from University of Arizona. She’s a founding editor of As/Us: A Space For Women Of The World  and teaches at Northwest Indian College. You can follow her on Twitter @casandramlopez.  The drink, "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose," alludes to "Sacred Emily," by modernist poet, Gertrude Stein. Ingredients: Sparkling rosé, pomplemousse rose liqueur, and fresh grapefruit juice combine sweet, pink forces in this strong, celebratory cocktail (which—much like a Gertrude Stein sentence—has a way of leaving those who partake in it delightfully bewildered). References: As Us Journal, Simon J. Ortiz, Dana Levin, VONA, CantoMundo, Macondo Writers Workshop, AWP, Trauma & Recovery by Judith Herman

Welcome back, lovelies! Last week, Rick Barot blew our minds with his thoughts on how poetry connects to everything from Spanish paintings to runway models. This week, Rick reads us the poem "Given to Rust" by Vievee Francis, and we delight in how this poem invites us to think about lineation, survival, authorial intent v creation, and Emily Dickinson.  RICK BAROT was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended Wesleyan University and The Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has published three books of poetry with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002); Want (2008); and Chord (2015), which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and received the 2016 UNT Rilke Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. Barot is the poetry editor of New England Review. He lives in Tacoma, Washington and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University. He is also the director of The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at PLU. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2020. VIEVEE FRANCIS is the author of Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly Books, 2015), winner of the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Award; Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012), winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize; and Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2006). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Kresge Foundation, Francis currently serves as an editor for Callaloo and teaches English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. REFERENCES: "Give to Rust" by Vievee Francis (Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day), enjambment, "Crumbling is not an instance act, or 1010" by Emily Dickinson

What's good friends. This week we get down with getting back into the swing of "the poetry world." We also sat down with Rick Barot and got taken all the way to school. He dropped so much knowledge on art and the body and the state of contemporary American poetry. Hurry up and listen already! RICK BAROT was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended Wesleyan University and The Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has published three books of poetry with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002); Want (2008); and Chord (2015), which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and received the 2016 UNT Rilke Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. Barot is the poetry editor of New England Review.  He lives in Tacoma, Washington and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University.  He is also the director of The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at PLU. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2020. THOSE WINTER GIN AND TONICS:  What did we know, what did we know of a gin and tonic’s potential to be a winter cocktail? Nothing! (Until we invented this version). The addition of Amaro Averna and fresh blood orange give the refreshing G&T you know and love some deeper bitter notes and a blink more sweetness. The title of the drink alludes to the famous, heartbreaking sonnet “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. Ingredients: Gin (we used Seattle-based Big Gin), Tonic Water, Amaro Averna, Blood Orange REFERENCES: "Archaic torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke; "Ode to a Grecian Urn" by John Keats; “Styrofoam Cup” by Brenda Hillman; Las Meninas by Diego Veláquez; "An A to Z of Theory: Roland Barthes and Semiotics" by Andrew Robinson; The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics; "At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop; VIDA

O dearest listeners, this week’s episode is a banger. The last time you heard us, we chopped it up with our homie, the immaculate Quenton Baker, about erasure, rigor, rap, and more. This week, Quenton brought in an underapprecated Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “Riders to a Blood-Red Wrath”, and, well, we all just marvel at it for a while. QUENTON BAKER is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. His current focus is anti-blackness and the afterlife of slavery. His work has appeared in Jubilat, Vinyl, Apogee, Poetry Northwest, Pinwheel, and Cura and in the anthologies Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters and It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Southern Maine and is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He is a 2017 Jack Straw Fellow and a former Made at Hugo House fellow, as well as the recipient of the 2016 James W. Ray Venture Project Award and the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. He is the author of This Glittering Republic (Willow Books, 2016). GWENDOLYN BROOKS is one of the most highly regarded, influential, and widely read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She was a much-honored poet, even in her lifetime, with the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Many of Brooks’s works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period. Her body of work gave her, according to critic George E. Kent, “a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young Black militant writers of the 1960s.” (read the rest here)

Good day, love. This week we wrestle with long response times from journals *cough* Tin House *cough cough*, and sit down with one of our favs Quenton Baker over New Formalist Old Fashioneds. QUENTON BAKER is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. His current focus is anti-blackness and the afterlife of slavery. His work has appeared in Jubilat, Vinyl, Apogee, Poetry Northwest, Pinwheel, and Cura and in the anthologies Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters and It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Southern Maine and is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He is a 2017 Jack Straw Fellow and a former Made at Hugo House fellow, as well as the recipient of the 2016 James W. Ray Venture Project Award and the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. He is the author of This Glittering Republic (Willow Books, 2016). NEW FORMALIST OLD FASHIONED: Like the poets in the late 20th and early 21st century who tried to put a modern spin on traditional metrical forms and rhyme schemes, we’ve revamped Don Draper’s favorite cocktail with rye whiskey, cardamom bitters, and a dash of orange blossom water. The NFOF is perfect for those looking for a spicier, more botanical take on this classic sip. Stir, don’t shake, and serve over ice in a short, stemless glass. Pairs well with floral hoodies, QFC muhammara dip, and our episode with Quenton Baker. INGREDIENTS: 2 oz rye whiskey (we used Templeton); 4 drops cardamom bitters; a dash of orange blossom water; a smidge of simple syrup; orange peel garnish   REFERENCES: This Glittering Republic and Ballast (a Frye Art Museum Exhibit) by Quenton Baker; Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and 20th-Century American Poetry by Lorenzo Thomas; Dante Micheaux; Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America by Saidiya Hartman; Fred Moten; Gwendolyn Brooks; Henry "Box" Brown; Olio by Tyehimba Jess; Phillis Wheatley; Citizen by Claudia Rankine

We're here! Last week, we were chatting it up with Nabila Lovelace about the South, the Conversation Literary Festival, and, of course, violence and intimacy. This week, Nabila brought in "On Kindness" by Aracelis Girmay. Hear her read it and be healed.   NABILA LOVELACE is a born and raised Queens native, as well as a first generation American. In her debut collection, Sons of Achilles, Nabila attempts to examine the liminal space between violence and intimacy. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Narrative Northeast, Washington Square Review, Day One, ESPNW, & Vinyl. She is co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival.     ARACELIS GIRMAY is the author of three collections of poetry: the black maria (BOA Editions, 2016); Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), winner of the 2011 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award and the GLCA New Writers Award, and a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Civitella Ranieri, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Girmay is the winner of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry. She teaches in Hampshire College’s School for Interdisciplinary Arts and Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in poetry.  

Good to see you hear us again, boo. This week we quibble about cover letters and interview the wise and generous Nabila Lovelace as we sip on Cold Clove Couplets. NABILA LOVELACE is a born and raised Queens native, as well as a first generation American. In her debut collection, Sons of Achilles, Nabila attempts to examine the liminal space between violence and intimacy. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Narrative Northeast, Washington Square Review, Day One, ESPNW, & Vinyl. She is co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival.   COLD CLOVE COUPLET is a cold take on a hot toddy. Like a heroic couplet, this cocktail marches on sure feet, giving the bite of ginger, the brightness of bubbles, and the warmth of bourbon and spice. Think Moscow Mule meets the Deep South over the holidays. Perfect for when you feel the sniffles coming on, but you still want to have a cute boozy brunch with your people. Pairs splendidly with apple pastries, rambunctious readings of the Iliad, and our episode with Nabila. INGREDIENTS: Rachel’s ginger beer; 2 oz bourbon; squeeze of fresh lemon; ice; two whole cloves