I'm in the middle of reading "The Power", a sci-fi novel by Naomi Alderman. It's so good, and it inspired me to make this playlist exploring the poetics of electricity. The novel is changing how I read these poems and vice versa.
A small selection of phenomenal writing from Korean-American poets writing today.
Chicken, avocado, cabbage, potato: these poems ply us with food to get us to open up.
"4:30 Movie" is the newest collection from poet Donna Masini. Released May 29th by W. W. Norton, we're thrilled to offer you this preview.
In poems that are by turns intimate and wild, provocative and tender, award-winning poet Donna Masini explores personal loss, global violence, and the consolations of art. She brings her wit, grief, fury, and propulsive energy to bear on the preoccupations of our daily lives and our attempts to bargain with endings of every kind. Equal parts lament and praise, 4:30 Movie is fueled by despair and humor, governed by the ways in which movies enter our imaginations and frame our experiences. The movie theater becomes a presiding metaphor: part waiting room, part childhood, part underground depths where the self is a bit player, riding the subway with “its engine of extras.” Masini’s exquisite word play shows the mind wrestling ferociously to forestall grief, as if finding the right words might somehow allow us to extend our beautiful foreshortened run.
"Speculation may seem necessary—and insistently dystopian—for the present to appear as a site of struggle." –Madeline Lane-McKinley
"The future is not some mystical, magical place. The future is moment to moment." –Octavia Butler
