A weekly podcast focusing on all things poetic, poetry and poets. Each week we will feature a poet and their poem. We will be highlighting classic poets from our In-School Anthology, sharing brief bios on the poet and a spoken word reading of one of their poems. We will also be introducing contemporary poets from the greater poetry community and our own Get Lit poets into the podcast space.
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Korean American poet, translator, columnist, and advocate for bilingual artists, Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong. She is the author of four poetry collections featuring pieces in both English and Korean. Her first book, Generation One Point Five, was published in 1993 in Korean with English translations. Most recently, Hong released The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora with KYSO Flash Press in 2019. Grounded in the true stories of Korean “comfort women,” the more than 200,000 women forced into sexual slavery by opposing forces during World War II, Hong's first-person poems seek to recenter the voices of Korean and Korean-American women in the narrative of their own history. This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Second Period”, featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology. “Second Period”I got called in to a little dark room,windowless.Mrs. Lopez showed me a picture book.Khang, I say.No, river, she says.Liver, I say.Not liver, it's river, she says.That's what I said, river, river, river, khang—It's a khang!She shook her head.Look at my mouth, she says, RRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVRiver.River, I said.Then shut my mouth.Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Lawson Fusao Inada. A third-generation Japanese American, his collections of poetry are Before the War: Poems as They Happened (1971); Legends from Camp (1992), winner of the American Book Award; Just Into/Nations (1996); and Drawing the Line (1997). Both jazz and the experience of internment are influences in Inada's writing. The section titles of his Legends from Camp reveal these ongoing concerns: Camp, Fresno, Jazz, Oregon, and Performance. Inada edited the anthology Only What We Carry: The Japanese Internment Experience (2000), a major contribution to the record of the Japanese American experience. He narrated the PBS documentaries Children of the Camps and Conscience and Constitution and is featured in the video What It Means to Be Free: A Video About Poetry and Japanese American Internment and the animated film Legends from Camp, made with his son Miles Inada. One of his poems is inscribed on a stone at the Japanese American Historical Plaza in Portland, Oregon. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, “Healing Gila”. You can find more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org .“Healing Gila” for The PeopleThe people don't mention it much.It goes without saying,it stays without saying—that concentration campon their reservation.And they avoid that massive siteas they avoid contamination—that massive voidpunctuated by crusted nails,punctured pipes, crumbledfailings of foundations . . .What else is there to say?This was a lush land once,graced by a gifted peoplegifted with the wisdomof rivers, seasons, irrigation.The waters went flowingthrough a network of canalsin the delicate workingsof balances and health . . .What else is there to say?Then came the nation.Then came the death.Then came the desert.Then came the camp.But the desert is not deserted.It goes without saying,it stays without saying—wind, spirits, tumbleweeds, pain.Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, librarian, and memorist, Toyo Suyemoto. During her early years, Suyemoto published under her husband's surname as Toyo Kawakami, Toyo S. Kawakami, and Toyo Suyemoto Kawakami, though later in life she preferred to be remembered only by her family name. Suyemoto was trained from an early age to be a poet. Her mother taught Japanese literature to her and her eight siblings as children, and also recited Japanese translations of Shakespeare. Suyemoto's own work in haiku and tanka is the direct result of her mother's influence, though she was also worked in conventional English lyric forms. Suyemoto herself began publishing poems in Japanese American community papers when she was a teenager, and she continued writing during her years of incarceration as a young woman in Topaz. During her lifetime, Suyemoto published a reference book for librarians, Acronyms in Education and the Behavioral Sciences, as well as poems in Yale Review, Common Ground and the anthology American Bungaku (1938). Interest in her work increased in the 1970s and 80s, however, and Suyemoto's work soon appeared in the anthologies Speaking for Ourselves: American Ethnic Writing (1969), Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology (1980), and Quiet Fire: A Historical Anthology of Asian American Poetry 1892-1970 (1996) as well as in the magazines Many Mountains Moving and Amerasia Journal. Four years after her death in 2003, Rutgers University Press published her memoir I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto's Years of Internment (2007). SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Barracks Home". You can find more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org ."Barracks Home"This is our barracks, squatting on the ground,Tar papered shacks, partitioned into roomsBy sheetrock walls, transmitting every soundOf neighbor's gossip or the sweep of broomsThe open door welcomes the refugees,And now at least there is no need to roamAfar: here space enlarges memoriesBeyond the bounds of camp and this new home.The floor is carpeted with dust, wind-borneDry alkalai, patterned with insect feet,What peace can such a place as this impart?We can but sense, bewildered and forlorn,That time, disrupted by the war from neatRoutines, must now adjust within the heart.Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, memoirist, and editor, Garrett Hongo. His collections of poetry include Yellow Light (1982), The River of Heaven (1988), Coral Road: Poems (2011), and The Mirror Diary (2017). His poetry explores the experiences of Asian Americans in Anglo society, using lush imagery, narrative techniques, and myth to address both cultural alienation and the trials of immigrants, including the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as well as the anti Japanese sentiment today. SourceThis episode includes a reading of an excerpt from his poem, “Something Whispered in the Shakuhachi”. You can find more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org .“Something Whispered in the Shakuhachi”No one knew the secret of my flutes,and I laugh nowbecause some said I was enlightened.But the truth isI'm only a gardenerwho before the Warwas a dirt farmer and learnedhow to grow the bambooin ditches next to the fields,how to leave things aloneand let the silt build upuntil it was deep enough to stinkbad as night soil, badas the long, witch-greyhair of a ghost.No secret in that.My land was no good, rocky,and so dry I had to sneakwater from the whites,hacksaw the locks off the chutes at night,and blame Mexicans, Filipinos,or else some wicked spiritof a migrant, murdered in his sleepby sheriffs and wanting revenge.Even though they never believed me,it didn't matter—no witnesses,and my land was never thick with rice,only the bamboogrowing lush as old melodiesand whispering like brush strokesagainst the fine scroll of wind.I found some string in the shedor else took a few stalksand stripped off their skins,wove the fibers, the floss,into cords I could bindaround the feet, ankles, and throatsof only the best bamboos.I used an ice pick for an awl,a fish knife to carve finger holes,and a scythe to shape the mouthpiece.I had my flutes.*When the War came,I told myself I lost nothing.My land, which was barren,was not actually mine but leased(we could not own property)and the shacks didn't matter.What did were the power lines nearbyand that sabotage was suspected.What mattered to mewere the flutes I burnedin a small fireby the bath house.*All through Relocation,in the desert where they put us,at night when the stars talkedand the sky came downand drummed against the mesas,I could hear my fluteswail like fists of windwhistling through the barracks.I came out of Camp,a blanket slung over my shoulder,found land next to this swamp,planted strawberries and beanplants,planted the dwarf pines and tended them,got rich enough to quitand leave things alone,let the ditches clog with silt againand the bamboo grow thick as history....Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Layli Long Soldier. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017). She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat and poetry editor at Kore Press; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Resolution (6)” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“Resolution (6)”I too urge the President to acknowledge the wrongs of the United States against Indian tribes in the history of the United States in order to bring healing to this land although healing this land is not dependent never has been upon this President meaning tribal nations and the people themselves are healing this land its waters with or without Presidential acknowledgement they act upon this right without apology– To speak to law enforcementthese Direct Action Principles be really clear always askhave been painstakingly drafted who what when where whyat behest of the local leadership e.g. Officer, my name is _________from Standing Rock please explainand are the guidelines the probable cause for stopping mefor the Oceti Sakowin camp you may askI acknowledge a plurality of ways does that seem reasonable to youto resist oppression don't give any further info* People ask why do you bring upwe are Protectors so many other issues it's becausewe are peaceful and prayerful these issues have been ongoing...Read more in our Get Lit Anthology at www.getlitanthology.org . Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, writer, and activist, Alice Walker. Her books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children's books, and volumes of essays and poetry. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “How Poems are Made / A Discredited View” featured in our 2021, 2022, and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“How Poems are Made / A Discredited View”Letting goIn order to hold oneI gradually understandHow poems are made.There is a place the fear must go.There is a place the choice must go.There is a place the loss must go.The leftover love.The love that spills outOf the too full cupAnd runs and hidesIts too full selfIn shame.I gradually comprehendHow poems are made.To the upbeat flight of memories.The flagged beats of the runningHeart.I understand how poems are made.They are the tearsThat season the smile.The stiff-neck laughterThat crowds the throat.The leftover love.I know how poems are made.There is a place the loss must go.There is a place the gain must go.The leftover love.Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Claude McKay. He was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. His philosophically ambitious fiction, including tales of Black life in both Jamaica and America, addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, which McKay found central to the Black individual's efforts to cope in a racist society. He is the author of The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose (1973), The Dialectic Poetry of Claude McKay (1972), Selected Poems (1953), Harlem Shadows (1922), Constab Ballads (1912), and Songs of Jamaica (1912), among many other books of poetry and prose. McKay has been recognized for his intense commitment to expressing the challenges faced by Black Americans and admired for devoting his art and life to social protest, and his audience continues to expand. Source This episode includes a reading of his poem, “I Know My Soul” featured in our 2022 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“I Know My Soul”I plucked my soul out of its secret place,And held it to the mirror of my eye,To see it like a star against the sky,A twitching body quivering in space,A spark of passion shining on my face.And I explored it to determine whyThis awful key to my infinityConspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.And if the sign may not be fully read,If I can comprehend but not control,I need not gloom my days with futile dread,Because I see a part and not the whole.Contemplating the strange, I'm comfortedBy this narcotic thought: I know my soul.Support the Show.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, filmmaker, educator and performer, Fatimah Asghar. Their work has appeared in many journals, including POETRY Magazine, Gulf Coast, BuzzFeed Reader, The Margins, The Offing, Academy of American Poets and many others. Their work has been featured on new outlets like PBS, NPR, Time, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, and others. In 2011, they created a spoken word poetry group in Bosnia and Herzegovina called REFLEKS while on a Fulbright studying theater in post-genocidal countries. They are a member of the Dark Noise Collective and a Kundiman Fellow. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-Nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Their debut book of poems, If They Come For Us, was released One World/ Random House, August 2018. Along with Safia Elhillo, they are the editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender nonconforming and/or trans. SourceThis episode includes a reading of their poem, “If They Come for Us” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“If They Come for Us”these are my people & I findthem on the street & shadowthrough any wild all wildmy people my peoplea dance of strangers in my bloodthe old woman's sari dissolving to windbindi a new moon on her foreheadI claim her my kin & sewthe star of her to my breastthe toddler dangling from strollerhair a fountain of dandelion seedat the bakery I claim them toothe Sikh uncle at the airportwho apologizes for the patdown the Muslim man who abandonshis car at the traffic light dropsto his knees at the call of the Azan& the Muslim man who drinksgood whiskey at the start of maghribthe lone khala at the parkpairing her kurta with crocsmy people my people I can't be lostwhen I see you my compassis brown & gold & bloodmy compass a Muslim teenagersnapback & high-tops gracingthe subway platformMashallah I claim them allmy country is madein my people's imageif they come for you theycome for me too in the deadof winter a flock ofaunties step out on the sandtheir dupattas turn to oceana colony of uncles grind their palms& a thousand jasmines bell the airmy people I follow you like constellationswe hear glass smashing the street& the nights opening darkour names this country's woodfor the fire my people my peoplethe long years we've survived the longyears yet to come I see you mapmy sky the light your lantern longahead & I follow I followSupport the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Carolyn Forché. Coiner of the term “poetry of witness,” she is frequently characterized as a political poet; she calls for poetry to invest in the “social.” She published her first book of poetry, Gathering the Tribes, in 1975. Forché received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship after translating the work of Salvadoran-exiled poet Claribel Algería in 1977; the fellowship enabled her to work as a human rights advocate in El Salvador. She has published five books of poetry and the 2019 memoir What You Have Heard Is True. Her work is often described as “devastating” due to its searing honesty and unflinching accounting of travesties. Forché has been given various awards in recognition of her work on behalf of human rights and the preservation of culture and memory.This episode includes a reading of her poem, “The Boatman” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“The Boatman”We were thirty-one souls all, he said, on the gray-sick of seain a cold rubber boat, rising and falling in our filth.By morning this didn't matter, no land was in sight,all were soaked to the bone, living and dead.We could still float, we said, from war to war.What lay behind us but ruins of stone piled on ruins of stone?City called “mother of the poor” surrounded by fieldsof cotton and millet, city of jewelers and cloak-makers,with the oldest church in Christendom and the Sword of Allah.If anyone remains there now, he assures, they would be utterly alone.There is a hotel named for it in Rome two hundred metersfrom the Piazza di Spagna, where you can have breakfast underthe portraits of film stars. There the staff cannot do enough for you.But I am talking nonsense again, as I have since that nightwe fetched a child, not ours, from the sea, drifting face-down in a life vest, its eyes taken by fish or the birds above us.After that, Aleppo went up in smoke, and Raqqa came under a rainof leaflets warning everyone to go. Leave, yes, but go where?We lived through the Americans and Russians, through Americansagain, many nights of death from the clouds, mornings surprisedto be waking from the sleep of death, still unburied and alivebut with no safe place. Leave, yes, we obey the leaflets, but go where?To the sea to be eaten, to the shores of Europe to be caged?To camp misery and camp remain here. I ask you then, where?You tell me you are a poet. If so, our destination is the same.I find myself now the boatman, driving a taxi at the end of the world.I will see that you arrive safely, my friend, I will get you there.Support the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and writer, Joy Harjo. She is the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States and a member of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Harjo began writing poetry as a member of the University of New Mexico's Native student organization, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empowerment movements. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry, including her most recent, the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019), which was a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award Winner; Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association; and In Mad Love and War (1990), which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. Harjo performs with her saxophone and flutes, solo and with her band, the Arrow Dynamics Band, and previously with Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice. Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums including Winding Through the Milky Way, for which she was awarded a NAMMY for Best Female Artist of the year. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Perhaps the World Ends Here” featured in our 2024 Get Lit Anthology.“Perhaps the World Ends Here”The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.Support the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, writer, and scholar, Lateef McLeod. He published his first poetry book entitled A Declaration of A Body Of Love in 2010 chronicling his life as a black man with a disability and tackling various topics on family, dating, religion, spirituality, his national heritage and sexuality. He also published another poetry book entitled Whispers of Krip Love, Shouts of Krip Revolution this year in 2020. He currently is writing a novel tentatively entitled The Third Eye Is Crying. In 2019 he started a podcast entitled Black Disabled Men Talk with co-hosts Leroy Moore, Keith Jones, and Ottis Smith. SourceThis episode includes a reading by Mason Granger of McLeod's poem, “I Am Too Pretty For Some Ugly Laws” featured in our 2021 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“I Am Too Pretty For Some Ugly Laws”I am not suppose to be herein this body,herespeaking to you.My mere presenceof erratic moving limbsand drooling smileused to be scrubbedoff the public pavement.Ugly laws used to beon many U.S. cities' law books,beginning in Chicago in 1867,stating that “any person who isdiseased, maimed, mutilated,or in any way deformedso as to be an unsightly or disgusting object,or an improper person to be allowedin or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares,or public places in this city,shall not therein or thereonexpose himself to public view,under the penalty of $1 for each offense.”Any person who looked like mewas deemed disgustingand was locked awayfrom the eyes of the upstanding citizens.I am too pretty for some Ugly Laws,Too smooth to be shut in.Too smart and eclecticfor any box you put me in.My swagger is too boldto be swept up in these public streets.You can stare at me all you want.No cop will buss in my headand carry me away to an institution.No doctor will diagnose mea helpless invalid with an incurable disease.No angry mob with clubs and torcheswill try to run me out of town.Whatever you do,my roots are rigidlike a hundred-year-old tree.I will stay right hereto glare at your ugly face too.Support the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, W.E.B. Du Bois. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, civil rights activist, and historian. Throughout his career, Du Bois was a founder and editor of many groundbreaking civil rights organizations and literary publications, such as The Niagara Movement and its Moon Illustrated Weekly and The Horizon periodicals, as well as the hugely influential National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its monthly magazine The Crisis. An adamant socialist and peace activist, his writing for these journals was pointedly anti-capitalist, anti-war, and pro-women's suffrage, on top of his core pursuit of the dismantling of systemic racism and discrimination. Possessing a large and hugely influential body of work, Du Bois is perhaps most notably the writer of the authoritative essay collection The Souls of Black Folks (1903) and his monumental work Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 (1935). Du Bois never stopped fighting for and evolving his beliefs, joining the Community Party at the age of 93. This episode includes a reading by Austin Antoine of Du Bois' poem, “The Song of Smoke” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology.“The Song of Smoke”I am the Smoke KingI am black!I am swinging in the sky,I am wringing worlds awry;I am the thought of the throbbing mills,I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,Wraith of the ripple of trading rills;Up I'm curling from the sod,I am whirling home to God;I am the Smoke KingI am black. I am the Smoke King,I am black!I am wreathing broken hearts,I am sheathing love's light darts;Inspiration of iron timesWedding the toil of toiling climes,Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes—Lurid lowering 'mid the blue,Torrid towering toward the true,I am the Smoke King,I am black. I am the Smoke King,I am black!I am darkening with song,I am hearkening to wrong!I will be black as blackness can—The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.I am daubing God in night,I am swabbing Hell in white:I am the Smoke KingI am black. I am the Smoke KingI am black!I am cursing ruddy morn,I am hearsing hearts unborn:Souls unto me are as stars in a night,I whiten my black men—I blacken my white!What's the hue of a hide to a man in his might?Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands—Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!I am the Smoke KingI am black.Support the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Page Lewis. Their poetry collections include Logically, I Know the Circus (2021), When I Tell My Husband I Miss the Sun, He Knows (2019), and You Can Take Off Your Sweater, I've Made Today Warm (2018). Support the showSupport the show
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of international touring Chicana poet and teaching artist, Angélica María Aguilera. She comes from a mixed family of immigrants and uses spoken word to rewrite the narrative of what it means to be Mexican, woman, and American. Her work has appeared in publications such as Button Poetry, the Breakbeat Poets Anthology LatiNext among others. Aguilera is the author of "Dolorosa" on Pizza Pie Press and "America As She." SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “A Star Spanglish Banner” featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."A Star Spanglish Banner"Oh say can you seeMiguel wants to learn the Star-Spangled Banner.Miguel was the last fourth grader to migrate into my English as a second language course,and is the first to raise his hand for every question.But Miguel views letters in a different way than most.Because there are a lot of words in Spanishthat do not exist in English,he learns how to pack them in a suitcase and forget.Because many phrases translate backwardswhen crossing over from Spanish to English,throughout the whole song, he tends to say things in the wrong order.So when I ask him to sing the second verse,it sounds likeAnd the rocket's red glareWe watched our homeBursting in airIt gave proof to the nightthat the flag was still theirsThey say music is deeply intertwined with how we remember.Miguel hears the marimba and learns the word home,hears his mother's accent being mocked and learns the words shame,hears his mother's weeping and learns the word sacrifice.He asks, what does the word America mean?What does the word dream mean?I say two words with the same meaning are what we call synonyms.You could say America is a dream,something we all feel silly for believing in.He says, teach me.Teach me how to say bandera.Teach me how to say star.Teach me how to hide my country behind the consonantsthat do not get pronounced.Miss Angelica,teach the letters to just flee from my lips like my parents,and build a word out of nothing.In my tongue, we do not pronounce the letter H.Home is not a sound my voice knows how to make.It's strange what our memories hold on to.It's strange what makes it over the borderto the left side of the brain,what our minds do not let us forget,how an accent is just a mother tonguethat refuses to let her child go. The language barrier is a 74 mile walllodged in the back of Miguel's throat,the bodies of words so easily lost in the translation.Oh, say for whom does that star-spangled banner yet waveGive back the land to the braveand let us make a home for us free.Support the showSupport the show
In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we spotlight the accomplished author, poet and educator, José Olivarez.José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. He is the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods. In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. SourceSupport the showSupport the show
In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we spotlight the accomplished writer and poet, Rigoberto González. Rigoberto González was born in Bakersfield, California and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. He is the author of several poetry books, including The Book of Ruin (2019); Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award; and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (1999), a National Poetry Series selection. He has also written two bilingual children's books, Antonio's Card (2005) and Soledad Sigh-Sighs (2003); the novel Crossing Vines (2003), winner of ForeWord Magazine's Fiction Book of the Year Award; a memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006), which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; and the book of stories Men without Bliss (2008). He has also written for The National Book Critics Circle's blog, Critical Mass; and the Poetry Foundation's blog Harriet. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, and the PEN/Voelcker Award, González writes a Latino book column for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is contributing editor for Poets & Writers, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers. González is a professor of English and director of the MFA Program in creative writing at Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in New York City. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, “Birthright” featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."Birthright"in the villageof your birthcuts a wallbleeds a border in the heatyou cannot swimin the rainyou cannot climb in the northyou cannot becuts a papercuts a law cuts a fingerfinger bleedsbaby hungersbaby feeds baby needsyou cannot goyou cannot buyyou cannot bring baby growsbaby knowsbordercrossingseasons bring winter bordersummer borderfalls a borderborder springSupport the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of international touring Chicana poet and teaching artist, Angélica María Aguilera. She comes from a mixed family of immigrants and uses spoken word to rewrite the narrative of what it means to be Mexican, woman, and American. Her work has appeared in publications such as Button Poetry, the Breakbeat Poets Anthology LatiNext among others. Aguilera is the author of "Dolorosa" on Pizza Pie Press and "America As She." SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “A Star Spanglish Banner” featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."A Star Spanglish Banner"Oh say can you seeMiguel wants to learn the Star-Spangled Banner.Miguel was the last fourth grader to migrate into my English as a second language course,and is the first to raise his hand for every question.But Miguel views letters in a different way than most.Because there are a lot of words in Spanishthat do not exist in English,he learns how to pack them in a suitcase and forget.Because many phrases translate backwardswhen crossing over from Spanish to English,throughout the whole song, he tends to say things in the wrong order.So when I ask him to sing the second verse,it sounds likeAnd the rocket's red glareWe watched our homeBursting in airIt gave proof to the nightthat the flag was still theirsThey say music is deeply intertwined with how we remember.Miguel hears the marimba and learns the word home,hears his mother's accent being mocked and learns the words shame,hears his mother's weeping and learns the word sacrifice.He asks, what does the word America mean?What does the word dream mean?I say two words with the same meaning are what we call synonyms.You could say America is a dream,something we all feel silly for believing in.He says, teach me.Teach me how to say bandera.Teach me how to say star.Teach me how to hide my country behind the consonantsthat do not get pronounced.Miss Angelica,teach the letters to just flee from my lips like my parents,and build a word out of nothing.In my tongue, we do not pronounce the letter H.Home is not a sound my voice knows how to make.It's strange what our memories hold on to.It's strange what makes it over the borderto the left side of the brain,what our minds do not let us forget,how an accent is just a mother tonguethat refuses to let her child go. The language barrier is a 74 mile walllodged in the back of Miguel's throat,the bodies of words so easily lost in the translation.Oh, say for whom does that star-spangled banner yet waveGive back the land to the braveand let us make a home for us free.Support the showSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Li-Young Lee. 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); and Rose (BOA Editions, 1986). SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, “A Story” featured in our 2023 Get Lit Anthology."A Story"Sad is the man who is asked for a storyand can't come up with one. His five-year-old son waits in his lap.Not the same story, Baba. A new one.The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear. In a room full of books in a worldof stories, he can recallnot one, and soon, he thinks, the boywill give up on his father. Already the man lives far ahead, he seesthe day this boy will go. Don't go!Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.Let me tell it! But the boy is packing his shirts,he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,the man screams, that I sit mute before you?Am I a god that I should never disappoint? But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?It is an emotional rather than logical equation,an earthly rather than heavenly one,which posits that a boy's supplicationsand a father's love add up to silence.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Alma Flor Ada. She has devoted her life to advocacy for peace by promoting a pedagogy oriented to personal realization and social justice. Alma Flor's numerous children's books of poetry, narrative, folklore, and non-fiction have received prestigious awards. Her professional books for educators, include: A Magical Encounter: Latino Children's Literature in the Classroom and, co-authored with F. Isabel Campoy: Authors in the Classroom: A Transformative Education Process, Initial Spanish Literacy: Strategies for Young Learners and Está linda la mar: Para comprender y usar la poesía en la clase. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Bilingual” featured in our 2022-23 Get Lit Anthology.“Bilingual”Because I speak Spanish I can listen to my grandmother's stories and say familia, madre, amor. Because I speak English I can learn from my teacher and say I love school. Because I am bilingual I can read libros and books, I have amigos and friends, I enjoy canciones and songs, juegos and games, and have twice as much fun. And someday, because I speak two languages, I will be able to do twice as much, to help twice as many people and be twice as good in what I do.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Agha Shahid Ali. His poetry collections include Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals (W. W. Norton, 2003), Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), and Bone Sculpture (1972). He is also the author of T. S. Eliot as Editor (1986), translator of The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1992), and editor of Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000). SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, “Stationery” featured in our 2022-23 Get Lit Anthology.“Stationery”The moon did not become the sun.It just fell on the desertin great sheets, reamsof silver handmade by you.The night is your cottage industry now,the day is your brisk emporium.The world is full of paper.Write to me.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Marty McConnell. Her second poetry collection, "when they say you can't go home again, what they mean is you were never there," won the 2017 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and is forthcoming in 2018 on Southern Indiana University Press. Her first nonfiction book, “Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop,” was recently published by YesYes Books. She is the co-creator and co-editor of underbelly, a web site focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. She is also the author of wine for a shotgun, (EM Press). In 2009, she launched Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell” featured in our Get Lit Anthology.“Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell”leaving is not enough; you muststay gone. train your heartlike a dog. change the lockseven on the house he's nevervisited. you lucky, lucky girl.you have an apartmentjust your size. a bathtubfull of tea. a heart the sizeof Arizona, but not nearlyso arid. don't wish awayyour cracked past, yourcrooked toes, your problemsare papier mache puppetsyou made or bought because the vendorat the market was so compelling you justhad to have them. you had to have him.and you did. and now you pull downthe bridge between your houses,you make him call beforehe visits, you take a loverfor granted, you takea lover who looks at youlike maybe you are magic. makethe first bottle you consumein this place a relic. place iton whatever altar you fashionwith a knife and five cranberries.don't lose too much weight.stupid girls are always tryingto disappear as revenge. and youare not stupid. you loved a manwith more hands than a paradeof beggars, and here you stand. heartlike a four poster bed. heart like a canvas.heart leaking something so strongthey can smell it in the street.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. She is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005); and 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997). SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished?" featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished?"When you quietly closethe door to a roomthe room is not finished. It is resting. Temporarily.Glad to be without youfor a while. Now it has time to gatherits balls of gray dust,to pitch them from corner to corner. Now it seeps back into itself,unruffled and proud.Outlines grow firmer. When you return,you might move the stack of books,freshen the water for the roses. I think you could keep doing thisforever. But the blue chair looks bestwith the red pillow. So you might as well leave it that way.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Asian American poet, Sally Wen Mao. She is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), and the debut fiction collection Ninetails (Penguin Books). She is also the author of two previous poetry collections, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "The Belladonna of Sadness." check out more poems by her featured in our Get Lit Anthology."The Belladonna of Sadness"Spring in Hell and everything's blooming.I dreamt the worst was over but it wasn't.Suppose my punishment was fields of lilies sharper than razors, cutting up fields of lies.Suppose my punishment was purity, mined and blanched.They shunned me only because I knew I was stunning.Then the white plague came, and their pleas were like a river.Summer was orgiastic healing, snails snaking around wrists.In heat, garbage festooned the sidewalks.Old men leered at bodies they couldn't touchuntil they did. I shouldn't have laughed but I laughedat their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow.Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for deadat the castle door. Then I robbed the castle and kissed my captor,my sadness, learned she was not a villain. To wake up in this verdant field,to watch the lilies flay the lambs. To enter paradise,a woman drinks a vial of amnesia. Found in only the palestflowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinkyflower and access its truest aroma, you have to let its stigma show.You have to let the pollen sting your eyes until you close them.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Guatelombian (Guatemalan-Colombian) American poet and screenwriter, Melissa Lozada-Oliva. Her book peluda (Button Poetry 2017) explores the intersections of Latina identity, feminism, hair removal & what it means to belong. Her novel-in-verse Dreaming of You is about bringing Selena back to life through a seance & the disastrous consequences that follow & it's coming out October 2021 on Astra House. She is the co-host of podcast Say More with Olivia Gatwood where they dissect the world through a poetic lens. Lozada-Olivia is currently working on a pilot about a haunted book store. She is interested in horror because she's scared of everything. Lozada-Olivia likes when things are little funny so that she has space to be a little sad. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in REMEZCLA, PAPER, The Guardian, BreakBeat Poets, Kenyon Review, Vulture, Bustle, Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and BBC Mundo! SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "The Women in My Family Are Bitches," featured in our Get Lit Anthology."The Women in My Family Are Bitches" cranky! bitchesstuck up! bitchescustomer service turned sour! bitches.can i help you? bitchesnext in line! bitchesi like this purse 'cause it makes me look mean bitchescan you take a picture of my outfit? full length!get the shoes in! bitchesi always wear heels to la fiesta! and i never take them off! bitchesall men will kill you! bitchesall men will leave you anyway! bitchesyou better text me when you get home okay! bitchespray before the plane takes off! bitchespray before the baby comes! bitchesshe has my eyes my big mouth, my fight! bitchessing to the scabs on her knees when she falls down! bitchesgive abuelita bendiciones! bitchesit's okay not to be liked! bitcheson our own til infinity! bitchesthe vengeful violentpissed prissed and polishedlipstick stained on an envelope,i'll be damned if i'm compliant! bitchesthe what did you call us? what did you say to us? what's that kind of love called again?bitches!Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Danusha Laméris. She is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House Press, 2014), selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Small Kindnesses," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."Small Kindnesses"I've been thinking about the way, when you walkdown a crowded aisle, people pull in their legsto let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”when someone sneezes, a leftoverfrom the Bubonic plague. “Don't die,” we are saying.And sometimes, when you spill lemonsfrom your grocery bag, someone else will help youpick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smileat them and for them to smile back. For the waitressto call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.We have so little of each other, now. So farfrom tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, thesefleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,have my seat," "Go ahead — you first," "I like your hat."Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Camonghe Felix. She is the author of Build Yourself a Boat (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry. The 2013 winner of the Cora Craig Award for Young Women, Felix has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Thank God I Can't Drive," featured in our 2021/23 Get Lit Anthology."Thank God I Can't Drive"My brain is trying so hard to outrun this. It is doing more work than the lie.I could go to jail for anything. I look like that kind of girl. I only speak one language. I amof prestige but can't really prove it. Not if my hands are tied. Not if my smartphone isseized. Not if you can't google me. Without an archive of human bragging rights, I'm[ ] nobody, an empty bag, two-toned luggage. I'm not trying to be sanctimonious,I just found out that I'm afraid to die, like, there goes years of posturing about, beating itlike I own it, taking it to the bathroom with the tampons—like, look at me, I am so agentand with all this agency I can just deploy death at any time. The truth isthat I'm already on the clock, I'm just a few notches down on the “black-girl-with-badmouth” list, the street lights go out and I'm just at the mercy of my own bravery andtheir punts of powerlessness, their “who the hell do you think you are's?”Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Anis Mojgani. He is the author of five books of poetry. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in journals Bat City Review, Rattle, Buzzfeed Reader, Thrush, and Forklift Ohio, amongst others. His latest book is In the Pockets of Small Gods. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget," featured in our 2021/23 Get Lit Anthology."Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget."Love me stupid.Love me terrible.And when I am nomountain but rathera monsoon of imperfectthunder love me. WhenI am blue in my facefrom swallowing myselfyet wearing my best hearteven if my best heartis a century of hungeran angry mule breathinghard or perhaps evenhopeful. A small sun.Little & bright.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Nuyorican poet, Tato Laviera. Shifting between English and Spanish in his poetry, Laviera addresses themes of immigration, history, and transcultural identity. Laviera was the author of several collections of poetry, including La Carreta Made a U-Turn (1979), AmeRícan (1985), Mainstream Ethics (Etica corriente) (1988), and Mixturao and Other Poems (2008). He also wrote more than a dozen plays, including King of Cans, which premiered in 2012 at New York's Red Carpet Theater. Laviera lived in New York, and dealt with diabetes and blindness until his death in 2013. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "my graduation speech," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."my graduation speech"i think in Spanishi write in Englishi want to go back to puerto rico,but i wonder if my kink could livein ponce, mayagüez and carolinatengo las venas aculturadasescribo en spanglishabraham in españolabraham in englishtato in spanish"taro" in englishtonto in both languageshow are you?¿cómo estás?i don't know if i'm comingor si me fui yasi me dicen barranquitas, yo reply,"¿con qué se come eso?"si me dicen caviar, i digo,"a new pair of converse sneakers."ahí supe que estoy jodíoahí supe que estamos jodíosenglish or spanishspanish or englishspanenglishnow, dig this:hablo lo inglés mataohablo lo español mataono sé leer ninguno bienso it is, spanglish to mataowhat i digo ¡ay, virgen, yo no sé hablar!Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Nate Marshall. He is an award-winning writer, editor, educator, and MC. His most recent book, Finna, was recognized as one of the best books of 2020 by NPR and The New York Public Library. He was also an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Marshall co-wrote the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks with Eve Ewing. He also wrote the audio drama Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis, Esq. Marshall records hip-hop as a solo artist and with the group Daily Lyrical Product. He co-wrote Chicago Public School's first literary arts curriculum and develops lesson plans using creative writing to help participants discuss social justice, mental health, community development, and other issues. Nate loves his family, friends, Black people, dope art, literature, history, comedy, arguing about top 5 lists, and beating you in spades. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Out South," a response to the last two lines of Robert Frost's "Out, Out.""Out South"… And they, since theywere not the one dead, turned to their affairs.— Robert Frost, “Out, Out”In Chicago, kids are beaten. they crackopen. they're pavement. they don't fight, they die.bodies bruised blue with wood. cameras catchus killing, capture danger to broadcaston Broadways. we Roseland stars, made playersfor the press. apes caged from 1st grade until.shake us. we make terrible tambourines.packed into class, kids passed like kidney stones.each street day is unanswered prayer for peace,news gushes from Mom's mouth like schoolboy blood.Ragtown crime don't stop, only waves—hello.crime waves break no surface on news—goodbye.every kid that's killed is one less free lunch,a fiscal coup. welcome to where we from.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Wang Ping. She is poet, writer, photographer, performance and multimedia artist. Her publications have been translated into multiple languages and include poetry, short stories, novels, cultural studies, and children's stories. Her multimedia exhibitions address global themes of industrialization, the environment, interdependency, and the people. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Things We Carry On The Sea.""Things We Carry On The Sea" We carry tears in our eyes: good-bye father, good-bye motherWe carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our heartsWe carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boatsWe carry scars from proxy wars of greedWe carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocidesWe carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom cloudsWe carry our islands sinking under the seaWe carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new lifeWe carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other shoreWe carry railroads, plantations, laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…built on our ancestors' backsWe carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chestsWe carry yesterday, today and tomorrowWe're orphans of the wars forced upon usWe're refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastesAnd we carry our mother tongues爱(ai)，حب (hubb), ליבע (libe), amor, love平安 (ping'an), سلام ( salaam), shalom, paz, peace希望 (xi'wang), أمل ('amal), hofenung, esperanza, hope, hope, hopeAs we drift…in our rubber boats…from shore…to shore…to shore…Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Tarfia Faizullah. She is the author of two poetry collections, REGISTERS OF ILLUMINATED VILLAGES (Graywolf, 2018) and SEAM (SIU, 2014). Tarfia's writing appears widely in the U.S. and abroad in the Daily Star, Hindu Business Line, BuzzFeed, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Poetry Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, the New Republic, the Nation, Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket, 2019), and has been displayed at the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Tarfia's writing is translated into Bengali, Persian, Chinese, and Tamil, and is part of the theater production Birangona: Women of War. Tarfia's collaborations include photographers, producers, composers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists, resulting in several interdisciplinary projects, including an EP, Eat More Mango. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Self-Portrait as Slinky”, featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.“Self-Portrait as Slinky”It's true I wanted to be beautiful before authentic. Say the word exotic. Say minority— a coiled, dark curl a finger might wrap itself in—the long staircase, and I was the momentum of metal springs descending down and down,a tension —the long staircase, and I was a stacked series of spheres finger-tipped again into motion—say taut, like a child who must please the elders and doesn't know how, a curl pulled thin. I wanted to be a reckoning, to tornado into each day's hard hands, that wanton lurching forward in the dark, another soaked black ringlet, that sudden haltingSupport the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Daphne Gottlieb, who stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the award-winning author of ten other books including the new collection of short stories, Pretty Much Dead. Previous works include Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words, a collection of letters from Death Row by the “first female serial killer” to her childhood best friend. She is also the author of five books of poetry, editor of two anthologies, and, with artist Diane DiMassa, the co-creator of the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious. She has relentlessly toured coast to coast, headlining solo tours as well as appearing with Hal Sirowitz, Lydia Lunch, and Maggie Estep. She has appeared at SXSW, Bumbershoot, and LadyFest Bay Area, and her poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in more than 50 anthologies. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Sexy Balaclava”. Check out more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology."Sexy Balaclava"I tried to rent the movieabout the protest,but the store didn't have it.In the film, the underdog wins.That's how you knowit's a movie.They are passing a law hereto keep people from sittingon the sidewalk. Poverty is still a crime in AmericaAnd I am looking more and morecriminal, by which I meanbroke, by which I mean beautiful.Holy. Revolutionis not pretty,but it can bebeautiful, I'm told.The protest was dull.There was no tear gasand there were no riot cops.Nothing got brokenand nothing got gassedand nothing got smashed.There was no bloodand the world was not savedso we went to the movies.In the film, people kissedat the end.The underdog won.That's how we knew it was a movie,a pretty lie.Revolutionis not prettybut I don't careabout looks.Set the dumpsteron fire. Breakthe windows.Don't kiss melike they do in the movies.Kiss melike they doon the emergencybroadcast news.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Olivia Gatwood. She has received international recognition for her poetry, writing workshops, and work as a Title IX Compliant educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery. Olivia's performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, Sundance Film Festival, Lambda Literary, and The Missouri Review, among others. She is the author of two poetry collections, NEW AMERICAN BEST FRIEND and LIFE OF THE PARTY. She is the co-writer of the film THE GOVERNESSES alongside director Joe Talbot (The Last Black Man in San Francisco). Her debut novel, WHOEVER YOU ARE, HONEY, will be released in 2023. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, “Ode to the Women on Long Island”. Check out more poems like this in our Get Lit Anthology.Ode to the Women on Long IslandI want to write a poemfor the women on Long Island whowhen I show them the knife I carry in my pursetell me it's not big enoughWho are waitresses and realtors and massage therapists and social workers and housewivesand tell me they wish they would have been artists“but life comes fast ya know?One minute you're taking typing classes for your new secretary job in the World Trade Center and the next it's almost overLife, I meanbut I kicked and screamed my way through it and so will youI can tell by the way you walkOne more thing—when they call you a bitch, say, ‘Thank you, thank you very much.'Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. Her work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. Source This episode includes a reading of her poem, “A Guide to Reading Trans Literature”. See more of her work in our Get Lit Anthology.“A Guide to Reading Trans Literature”We're dying and we're really sad.We keep dying because trans womenare supposed to die.This is sad.I don't have the words for my bodyso I'll say I'm a cloudor a mountainor something pretty that people enjoyso if I diepeople will be like “Oh, that's sad”.Be sad about that.It's okay to be sad.It is sad when people die.It is sad when people want to die.I sometimes want to die but I don't!I'm one of the lucky ones.You can feel happy about that.It's okay to feel happy about that.Now pretend this is very serious:History doesn't exist.My body doesn't exist.There's nothing left for you to be complicit in.It's okay for you to feel happy about that.Now pretend I am cryingright in front of you,opening that wound up just for you.Now pretend you can feel my pain.Now pretend something in youhas been moved, has been transformed.Now pretend you are absolved.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, author, visual artist, and musician, Shira Erlichman. Her poems explore recovery – of language, of home, of mind. Her poetry book Odes to Lithium centers around her experiences with mental illness. Her picture book Be/Hold: A Friendship Book uses compound words to illuminate what is possible when we come together. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed Reader, The Rumpus, PBS NewsHour's Poetry Series, The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times, among others. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Mind Over Matter", featured in our 2022 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology."Mind Over Matter"I tried. But mind over matter is a joke. The mindis matter. Someone's unprofessional opinionwas to “relax” over matter. To sandcastle overwave. They aimed to clean up a murder scenefrom behind a plate of glass. It was my murder.Mine. As if I could possess the firegrief thatpossessed me. Wrestle the wind to the floor fordaring enter my house. But it's just me downthere, gripping my shoulders, threatening myown heart. Have you ever seen the dark splitinto two peaches? Sickness is a lot like that.To the uninitiated it looks like fruit. Wise, shiny,certifiably cherry. Do you mind if I die while Isay it? Rot that my teeth met: my fault. Would itmatter if I tried while I died? Will you relaxthe coffin into the soil? If you don't have bloodon your hands by the end of this you weren'tlistening.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Stephen Dunn. He has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing. Dunn's books of poetry include Lines of Defense (W. W. Norton, 2014); Different Hours (2000); Local Time (1986); and Looking For Holes In the Ceiling (1974). SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Sweetness". See more of his work in our Get Lit Anthology."Sweetness"Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac with a perfect reason, often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world except the way I stumbled through it, for a while lost in the ignorance of loving someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth-size, hand-size, and never seeming small. I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn't leave a stain, no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet .... Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low and guttural, he repeated what he needed to repeat, and I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief until we were speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don't care where it's been, or what bitter road it's traveled to come so far, to taste so good.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Matthew Dickman. Dickman is the author of three full length collections, All American Poem, Mayakovsky's Revolver (W.W. Norton & Co, 2012), and Wonderland (W.W. Norton & Co, 2017); and co-author, with Michael Dickman, of 50 American Plays (Copper Canyon, 2012), and Brother (Faber & Faber, 2016). He is also the author of four chapbooks: 24 Hours (Poor Claudia, Portland & onestar press, Paris, 2014), Wish You Were Here (Spork Press, 2013), Amigos (Q Ave. Press, 2007), and Something About a Black Scarf (Azul Press, 2008). SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Slow Dance.""Slow Dance"More than putting another man on the moon,more than a New Year's resolution of yogurt and yoga,we need the opportunity to dancewith really exquisite strangers. A slow dancebetween the couch and dinning room table, at the endof the party, while the person we love has goneto bring the car aroundbecause it's begun to rain and would break their heartif any part of us got wet. A slow danceto bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two peoplerocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.It's a little like cheating. Your head restingon his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.Your hands along her spine. Her hipsunfolding like a cotton napkinand you begin to think about how all the stars in the skyare dead. The my bodyis talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,Stairway to Heaven, power-cord slow dance. All my lifeI've made mistakes. Smalland cruel. I made my plans.I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.The slow dance doesn't care. It's all kindness like childrenbefore they turn four. Like being held in the armsof my brother. The slow dance of siblings.Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,and when he turns to dip meor I step on his foot because we are both leading,I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.The slow dance of what's to comeand the slow dance of insomniapouring across the floor like bath water.When the woman I'm sleeping withstands naked in the bathroom,brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spitinto the sink. There is no one to save usbecause there is no need to be saved.I've hurt you. I've loved you. I've mowedthe front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dresscovered in a million beadscomes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,I take her hand in mine. I spin her outand bring her in. This is the almond grovein the dark slow dance.It is what we should be doing right now. Scrappingfor joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutang slow dance.Support the show
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Mojave American poet, Natalie Diaz. She is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Manhattan is a Lenape Word". See more of her work in our Get Lit Anthology."Manhattan is a Lenape Word"It is December and we must be brave.The ambulance's rose of lightblooming against the window.Its single siren-cry: Help me.A silk-red shadow unbolting like waterthrough the orchard of her thigh.Her, come—in the green night, a lion.I sleep her bees with my mouth of smoke,dip honey with my hands stung sweeton the darksome hive.Out of the eater I eat. Meaning,She is mine, colony.The things I know aren't easy:I'm the only Native Americanon the 8th floor of this hotel or any,looking out any windowof a turn-of-the-century buildingin Manhattan.Manhattan is a Lenape word.Even a watch must be wound.How can a century or a heart turnif nobody asks, Where have allthe natives gone?If you are where you are, then whereare those who are not here? Not here.Which is why in this city I havemany lovers. All my lovesare reparations loves.What is loneliness if not unimaginablelight and measured in lumens—an electric bill which must be paid,a taxi cab floating across three laneswith its lamp lit, gold in wanting.At 2 a.m. everyone in New York Cityis empty and asking for someone.Again, the siren's same wide note:Help me. Meaning, I have a giftand it is my body, made two-handedof gods and bronze.She says, You make me feellike lightning. I say, I don't everwant to make you feel that white.It's too late—I can't stop seeingher bones. I'm counting the carpals,metacarpals of her hand inside me.One bone, the lunate bone, is namedfor its crescent outline. Lunatus. Luna.Some nights she rises like that in me,like trouble—a slow luminous flux.The streetlamp beckons the lonelycoyote wandering West 29th Streetby offering its long wrist of light.The coyote answers by lifting its headand crying stars.Somewhere far from New York City,an American drone finds then lovesa body—the radiant nectar it seeksthrough great darkness—makesa candle-hour of it, and burnsgently along it, like American touch,an unbearable heat.The siren song returns in me,I sing it across her throat: Am Iwhat I love? Is this the glittering worldI've been begging for?Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Armenian American poet, Diana Der-Hovanessian. She is the author of more than 25 books of poetry and translations. Her poems have appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, Ararat, CSM, Poetry, Partisan, Prairie Schooner, Nation, etc., and in anthologies such as Against Forgetting, Women on War, On Prejudice, Finding Home, Leading Contemporary Poets, Orpheus and Company, Identity Lessons, Voices of Conscience, Two Worlds Walking, etc. Among the several plays written by DDH, two (The Secret of Survival and Growing Up Armenian) were produced and in 1984 and 1985 traveled to many college campuses in the 80s telling the Armenian story with poetry and music. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Shifting the Sun", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology."Shifting the Sun"When your father dies, say the Irish,you lose your umbrella against bad weather.May his sun be your light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Welsh,you sink a foot deeper into the earth.May you inherit his light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Canadians,you run out of excuses. May you inherithis sun, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the French,you become your own father.May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Indians,he comes back as the thunder.May you inherit his light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Russians,he takes your childhood with him.May you inherit his light, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the English,you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians. When your father dies, say the Armenians,your sun shifts forever.And you walk in his light.Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, 陳琛 / Chen Chen. How work includes Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency andWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities. Chen is also the author of four chapbooks and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God. His work appears/is forthcoming in many publications, including Poem-a-Day and three editions of The Best American Poetry. With a brilliant team, he edits the journal, Underblong. With Gudetama the lazy egg, he edits the lickety~split. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, "Self-Portrait as a Wild Extrovert", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology."Self-Portrait as a Wild Extrovert"I have 600 dear friends.I hug each of themdaily. I never need a mintbut am always ready to offer oneor 600. I love & know a lotabout biking/baking. I love & knowa lot about Celine Dion,thanks to my mom, who is, if Iabsolutely had to pick one—butwho am I kidding, of courseshe's my best friend.Once, every five years, I mightfeel a smidge of sadness.& when I do, I justsit down, maintaining impeccable,approachable posture, & breathe.I breathe like the very well-organized, very wall-lessad agency I've runsince birth. I breathelike breathing is my oldestdear friend named DaphneDaphne, whom I still call every nightbefore bed to say, You arean incandescent multiverse—don't youforget it, & that neverfails to do the trick.Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Leila Chatti. She is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), on the longlist for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and the chapbooks Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors' Selection from Bull City Press. SourceThis episode includes a reading of her poem, "Tea", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology."Tea"Five times a day, I make tea. I do thisbecause I like the warmth in my hands, like the feelingof self-directed kindness. I'm not used to it—warmth and kindness, both—so I create my ownwhen I can. It's easy. You just pourwater into a kettle and turn the knob and listenfor the scream. I do thisfive times a day. Sometimes, when I'm pleased,I let out a little sound. A poet noticed thisand it made me feel I might one dayproperly be loved. Because no one is hereto love me, I make tea for myselfand leave the radio playing. I mustremind myself I am here, and do soby noticing myself: my feet are coldinside my socks, they touch the ground, my stomachchurns, my heart stutters, in my hands I holda warmth I make. I come froma people who pray five times a dayand make tea. I admire the way they doboth. How they drop to the groundwherever they are. Droppine nuts and mint sprigs in a glass.I think to care for the selfis a kind of prayer. It is a gestureof devotion toward what is not always belovedor believed. I do not always believein myself, or love myself, I am surethere are times I am bad or goneor lying. In another's mouth, tea often means gossip,but sometimes means truth. Despitethe trope, in my experience my people do not liefor pleasure, or when they should,even when it might be a gestureof kindness. But they are kind. If you wereto visit, a woman would bring youa tray of tea. At any time of day.My people love tea so muchit was once considered a sickness. Their colonizerstried, as with any joy, to snuff it out. They feared a loveso strong one might sell or kill their otherloves for leaves and sugar. Teaismsounds like a kind of faithI'd buy into, a god I wouldn't fear. I think now I truly believeI wouldn't kill anyone for love,not even myself—most daysI can barely get out of bed. So I make tea.I stand at the window while I wait.My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds.I do the small thing I know how to doto care for myself. I am trying to notice joy,which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Victoria Chang. Her collections of poetry include Circle (2005); Salvinia Molesta (2008); The Boss (2013); and Barbie Chang (2017). Her poems have been published in the Kenyon Review, Poetry, the Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry 2005. Chang is the editor of the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (2004). SourceThis episode includes a reading of an excerpt from her poem, "Orbit", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.Excerpt from "Obit" [Blame]Blame—wants to die but cannot. Itshair is untidy but it's always here. Mymother blamed my father. I blamed myfather's dementia. My father blamedmy mother's lack of exercise. Myfather is the story, not the storyteller.I eventually blamed my father becausethe story kept on trying to become the storyteller. Blame has no face. I havewalked on its staircase around andaround, trying to slap its face but onlyhitting my own cheeks. When somepeople suffer, they want to tell everyoneabout their suffering. When the brushhits a knot, the child cries out loud,makes a noise that is an expression ofpain but not the pain itself. I can't feelthe child's pain but some echo of her pain, based on my imagination. Blameis just an echo of pain, a veil acrossthe face of the one you blame. I blameGod. I want to complain to the boss ofGod about God. What if the boss ofGod is rain and the only way to speakto rain is to open your mouth to the skyand drown?Support the show (https://getlit.org/donate/)
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