Feeling Like a Poet

Written by Joelis Rodriguez

Header Image: Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (Autorretrato con Collar de Espinas) 1940 Frida Kahlo

In the public sphere, a straightforward conclusion is drawn about the vocation of the poet: too emotional. They’re penniless! Get a real job! The jokes are endless. But I’m here to argue our right to exist, and exist with feeling. What does it mean to feel like a poet? To be a poet, with feelings?

A poet is a person that feeds themselves and others with words from a  language that they manufacture, a language that each poet births as their own. It is time that, as poets, we embrace our blessing and curse of feeling intensely. It is the fire that engraves our pages as we write.  It’s the voice that camouflages in between letters, tangling words, creating sentences. It’s the children inside of us, treating stanzas and rhymes as building blocks. It’s the roots that molded us into what we are today: intense poets living in an intense world where literature is not appreciated. 

Feeling like a poet is translating life into verses. We highlight uncomplicated scenarios and turn them raw. Dissecting contrasting emotions and molding them into our favor creates a pathway for poets to express themselves. There are no rights and wrongs while writing poetry. It is only you, your emotions, and an empty piece of paper. No one can dictate the way you feel. There is no shame in feeling. Feel like there are no consequences, like the only world that matters is the one you’re creating. 

The world of poetry is enchanting. It’s made up of time periods, all the way from Shakespeare’s sonnets to contemporary free verse. It’s a majestic place of different forms that would never let the reader stand in trial. There is no judgment.. Everything is raw. Just break this stanza here, create a new verse there, even make the first stanza your title, because rules are not the point here. 

Expert from Aimee Nezhukumamathil’s When You Select the Daughter Card

By seeking

to understand and accept the more salty aspects

of yourself, you might grow another arm or leg,

pointing at your truest love. If you fear that you

have not fully accepted all the many hard

and wondrous ways you are loved, don’t siphon

away your frustration.

Allow yourself to visit the poetry world and feel. Let your bare feet touch the fictional rough and prickly green grass and feel. Tear it out with your bare hands and allow your fingers to get cuts and feel.

Feel.

Feel.

Feel.

Feel until your physical body cannot hold for any longer. Feel until your brain enters another dimension. Feel until poetry removes the numbness that our world has to offer. Don’t be scared and just feel. Feel until the pen on your hand runs out of ink.

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Joelis Rodriguez is a born & raised Puerto Rican poet who uses poetry as a refuge from real life. Through verses, she desires to represent her heritage and raise awareness to the past and present events happening in the small Carribean island. She currently studies at Stony Brook University, majoring in Creative Writing & Literature with a minor in TV writing. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her at the beach collecting seashells or singing her heart out at some concert.

PSNY's Place to Write #1

As much as there’s plentiful opportunity to be inspired in darling NYC, often quiet times to write are harder to come by. We’re launching this series on First Mondays as a monthly reminder to take some time out for the poet in you.
Carve out some you-time and head down to this month’s PTW spot & give this Prompt a free write.

The Rose Main Reading Room 

Directions: Take the B/D/F/M or 7 to Bryant Park Subway Station. Enter the Public Library via 5th Ave and take either staircase from the gorgeous stone lobby, up two flights to the top floor, a very mahogany landing spot with frescoes upon the ceilings and two rooms on either side. The Reading Room has a security guard who you tell the top-secret code, “I’m just here to study” to be let through. Find a seat beneath the clouds.

Your Prompt

The entrance to the Rose Main Reading Room bears an Olde English version of this inscription:
A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose, to a life beyond life.

Let this quote guide a free write for 25 minutes. What would an examination of your own blood yield, what gives it life? What runs through it? Genetically, emotionally, spiritually. 

When that blood stops flowing, what lives on about you? What treasures? What is there to embalm?

Hashtag #PSNYPlacestoWrite when you visit our PTW Location 1. Feel free to share what you write, we’ll repost it @poetrysocietyofny. 

Series by F.M Papaz

Directions to The Rose Main Reading & a Prompt for this month’s PSNY ‘Places to Write.’

F.M Papaz is a Greek-Australian creative and writer who believes that there is space at the literary table for everyone and is excitedly setting up your cutlery. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Wild Roof Journal, Five South & Mantissa Poetry Review amongst others. She does Editorial work for Milk Press and Tabula Rasa Review as well as being a Marketing Associate for PSNY. Connect @fmpapaz on Instagram & TikTok and visit fmpapaz.com/ings to find her monthly newsletter about living a creative life and to find her chapbook, ‘Distance Makes the Heart Grow.’

Black History Always (Not Just a Month) - Written by Faith-Marie McHenry

Although Black History Month is coming to a close, we must remember that the influence of Black art and culture in the poetry world and the world beyond deserves acknowledgement and utmost appreciation 24/7/365. We mustn't forget nor discard the contributions that Black authors have made to the writing world, nor the ways Black poets have used their writing voices to pave paths towards representation in a creative world that lacks the centering of Black experiences in celebrated poetry. 

When we think of Black poets, most often, the eras of the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movements throughout the 1950s and 60s come to mind. In reality, Black poets have been writing verse reflective of their experiences in America as early as the American Revolution, with just a few examples being Jupiter Hammon (1711-1800), Lucy Terry (1730-1821), and Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784).

Before this white-washing of history, African poetry had long existed in the Motherland, spanning the continent with scripts documenting the kings and queens of Ethiopia and Ghana. A selection of traditional ancient African poems can be found in Margaret Busby's 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa. Art, in all its forms, including poetry, was essential in preserving the spirit and dignity of African people as oppressors stripped Black people of their freedom. Jupiter Hammon wrote religious poems as an enslaved person and, in his writings, longed for salvation from this world.

Though his real name was taken from him, along with his humanity, Hammon put a light to what hope and perseverance he had remaining, and let it shine through in his poem titled, "An Essay on Slavery, with submission to Divine providence, knowing that God Rules over all things" (November 10th, 1786), that I encourage all to read for an eye-opening perspective on how poetry can act as a reclamation of power in even the most atrocious periods of history. 

Excerpt from Hammon's poem: 

Although we came from Africa 

We look unto our God

To help with our hearts to sigh and pray 

And Love his holy word 

Although we are in slavery 

Bound by the yoke of Man 

We must always have a single Eye 

And do the best we can.

Black art, Black spirit, Black love, and Black people are not to be celebrated just once a month, especially not for the profit or for the patting yourself on the back for wishing your coworker a Happy Black History Month. As lovers of poetry, it is our obligation to know its history, and that includes the historical Black writers who paved their own way. As a Black woman and poet myself, I know how much representation matters. How are we to move forward and progress in a growingly culturally diverse writing world if we are not aware of the ground we are standing on, nor the roots beneath it?

We owe it not only to the Black community, but to ourselves to become admirers of the Black and brown poets who came before us, who are with us today, and who are on their way to being in this world and changing it for the better. Black History Month might end, but Black History never does. Read it, and remember it. Make your knowledge and activism real, not a performance.

And to the Black and brown poets, know how important your voice is, even when it feels like the  world might be trying to silence you. You have a right and an obligation to tell your story freely and fully in whatever way you please.

On that note, I will end with a short piece from Etheridge Knight (who, if you don't know, do your research now!) that I feel perfectly encapsulates the power and magic of being a poet no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what you're going through, and no matter how much or how little you have. Your voice matters.

"On the Projects Playground" 

Say, Mister! 

Uh-huh? 

You a poet / man? 

Uh-huh, uh-huh. 

Me too. 

Uh-huh, uh-huh!

Faith-Marie McHenry is a junior at Sarah Lawrence College, concentrating on creative writing and cultural studies. She couldn’t imagine a world without poetry and has been writing for her sanity since was a preteen. When not writing, you can find her singing karaoke, walking by the Bronx River, or on a shopping spree. Since 2023, she has been an editor for Sarah Lawrence’s literary magazine, Love & Squalor.

References:
Hammon, Jupiter, Cedrick May, and Julie Mccown. 2013. “‘An Essay on Slavery’: An Unpublished Poem.” 1 American Literature 48 (2): 457–71. https://preservationlongisland.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Cedrick May_An-Essay-on-Slavery-An-Unpublished-Poem-by-Jupiter-Hammon.pdf.

 Knight, Etheridge. 1986. The Essential Etheridge Knight. University Of Pittsburgh Press.

Why We Need More Love Poems This Valentine’s Day (And Every Day!)

By Faith-Marie McHenry

In our modern dating world, romance has been thrown out the window.

There’s an uptick in screen-time over tactile experiences like candlelit dinners, fresh-picked flowers, or handheld walks around a park. For Gen Z and Millennials alike, romance is dying. But we know a secret to revive it…

That’s right, poetry—specifically, the art of the love poem. As a self-proclaimed sap, I find myself writing and consuming love poems for much of my waking time (and wishing someone would write them about me, but that’s another story). Though most of us might find the act cheesy, cliché, or corny (there are so many ways to say it), we must admit that, sometimes, actions don’t have the same effect. Only words can suffice for certain feelings so robust, whether unrequited or not.

Think about it: how often have you caught yourself staring at a special someone, wishing you had the words to convey how much you adore them? Well, maybe you do! You’ll never know until you try to write them down. And it’ll be good practice for eventually saying them in person. 

If you’re unsure what to get your lover for this Valentine’s Day, write them a poem. I dare you. I bet you’ll realize your feelings were more profound than you ever knew once you put them into words. Try writing in a world that has been overtaken by dating apps and instant interactions with human beings that feel as meaningless as scrolling past another 15-second video on TikTok. Put down something cliché if you’ve got nothing (there’d be no originals without the clichés!). Compare someone to a summer’s day. 

Poetry forces you to tap into the heart; you’ll never know what’s in there until you try cracking it open with a pen. If you’re dreading this Valentine’s because you’ve recently fallen out of a relationship or are hung up on someone who doesn’t look back your way, writing your feelings down could be the best cure for sorting them all out. 

And poetry doesn’t just have to be an act of loving someone else. I think it’s even more beautiful as an act of self-love. So, for all the single minglers walking past the heart-shaped chocolate box aisles with scowls on their faces, I dare you to look in the mirror and into your mind and write down all the beautiful things you see and find. You don’t need a Valentine to be loved! 

Moral of the story: don’t be afraid to be a hopeless romantic. I know, we’ve heard the same lines again and again; roses are red and violets are blue… But as long as we’re human, it will always warm the heart to hear these three words from someone: I love you. So grab a paper and pen and put down your poetic, heartfelt twist on love. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, and happy writing. ♡

AI & Poetry: Nemeses to Lovers?

Image Credit: Possessed Photography

Written by Fi / F.M Papaz (@fmpapaz)

If you’re a technology-challenged poet like me, whose browser activities don’t elevate past Google Suite, I can probably guess your feelings on the use of Artificial Intelligence in poetry and literature. We have many reasons to fear the murky territory of AI, especially in regards to the ethical concerns around privacy, intellectual property and plagiarism.

But should we be so quick to toss out the tube-grown baby with the bathwater? 

I pushed my discomfort aside and asked the biddable bot itself – Chat GPT.

Fi: Do you think you should be used for writing poems?

ChatGPT: Certainly! I can be a helpful tool for generating ideas, providing inspiration, or even assisting in the drafting process when it comes to writing poems. Whether you're looking for creative prompts, exploring different styles, or seeking assistance with specific elements of your poem, I'm here to help.

However, it's important to note that while I can generate content, the true depth and personal touch in poetry often come from the unique voice and experiences of the poet. So, consider using me as a tool to complement your creative process rather than replace it entirely.

Wow, that’s very intellectually honest of you Chat-bae. 

This was my first time using the tech, so I spent a couple minutes poking around to test its capabilities before I got bored. Hilariously, both Chat-bae and Google’s Bard, could not produce for me a poem without an AABB rhyme scheme, no matter how many times I asked it to rewrite it. But I digress.

Last year, in an effort to diversify my poetry arsenal, I sought out various workshops online and stumbled upon, ‘If, Then: Technology & Poetics.’ They are a working group and monthly workshop series that “bring together writers, coders, and scholars investigating the relationships between humans and machines and the works of art, literature, and visual knowledge they produce together.”

It is their founder Carly Schnitzler’s belief that, “writing itself is a technology—creative computational practices bring this truth into sharp and productively defamiliarizing relief.” She started ‘If, Then’ in the Fall of 2020 “as a way to connect with others invested in creative computation and to create an accessible, friendly, and generative space for folks, of all backgrounds and interests, to explore creative computational methods in their writing and art-making practices.”  Their archives are available for free online and all their workshops are free, virtual and open to everyone.

Via the ‘If, Then’ community, I have discovered many creatives doing mind-boggling things with Tech. In one of the first workshops I attended, Amira Hanifa presented their digital work CreaTures Glossary.

Amira is interested in “language as material,” and the way that our use of words to categorize, has a by-product of the “particularities [being] blurred in the naming.” Her project, which you can find at this website address, desires to provide a space for nonviolent language; pushing back on our human tendency to assign categorization that will inevitably fall short of sufficiently capturing phenomena or beings.

Amira encourages free play and contributions to the definitions of the words provided on the website, a living, digital dictionary that reflects the evolutionary reality of language. My favorite function is the ‘Interview with a Word’ function which you can find by:
> Start by defining a word
> Select one of the terms on the left, E.g. “regeneration”
> Scroll to beneath the second text box.
> Read but also contribute answers to questions asked and answered as if you were that word’s persona.

Another poet and smarty-pants programmer I was introduced to from ‘If, Then’ is Natalie Jane Edson. On her website - https://nataliejaneedson.com/poetry-tool/ - she has some very intuitive, very fun poetry tools that go by the following names: Cut Up Machine, Erasure, Homolinguistic Translator, Marshmallow Experiment 1 and Mirror Poems. I promise you endless awe and the unblocking of any stuck poem if you play around with these tools! Please credit Natalie if you use her free tools.

Natalie and Amira are just two examples of brilliant, creative minds dispelling myths around the compatibility of technology and poetics.

I asked Natalie to provide me further insight into her philosophy around the use of AI in poetry. She said, and I conclude (emphatic, exclamation mark implied) with her response:

“The idea that current AI language models can only make poetry worse reeks of the same cynicism that makes people ask: is it even possible to write anything new? Hasn’t it already all been said before?

The answer is of course not, because we’ve never had a world like this. We’ve never had the same people here. I am a different artist than I was yesterday, and I’m also a different artist than anyone else I have ever met. If you give a room of poets a prompt or a set of words from which to write a poem, it is inconceivable that any two poets would come up with identical works.

So there is always an element of curation in artmaking, which people are ignoring in this conversation about emergent technologies. The things that you pick up as inspiration rely on your personality, your memories, your geography, etc.

When people are working with AI, for example, the generated parts that get shared or pulled into a final work depend on the artist’s perspective and interests. It’s not as if they are not present.  The artist’s hand is in whatever they do, every miniscule choice they make. I believe in the uniqueness of the lens. As long as we have humanity and individuality there will be artistry.

Furthermore, art always expands itself according to the technology that is available. When photography came around, people believed that it would be the death of painting. The average person in 1900 could not possibly have conceived of the work of video artists like Nam June Paik. I don’t think people realize that the first computer generated poems were written in the 1950s, that as long as we have had the ability to code we have been using it to create literature.

I personally think that it would be a shame for us to abandon our curiosity and desire to experiment because of a media frenzy about what we’re calling “AI”, which in reality is a set of technologies that doesn’t even come close to having the capabilities described in science fiction. Existing mediums are not diminished by the creation of new ones.

As for my own work, I see both my digital poems and my poetry tools as part of the legacy of early 20th century surrealist movements. I have a tool called the “Cut-up Machine” that mimics the methods of Burroughs and the Dadaists. I am interested in randomness, sense and nonsense.

And I am doing things that would be impossible to do without the use of code and the internet.”

*Mic Drop*

____________________________________________________________________

Other freebies to check out:

• Cliche-finder: Avoid cliches in your poetry by pasting your draft into this handy-dandy tool, it’ll highlight overused words and phrases.
  “[Political] prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.                             -George Orwell, Politics and the English Language”

• Hemingway Editor: Highlights passive voice, complex sentences and adverbs in your writing.

• PoetrySoup: A more communal tool, you can post on PoetrySoup and receive free constructive criticism from other poets, while offering your insights to others too.
  
  Article Contributors:

Natalie Jane Edson is a queer poet and programmer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work focuses on the mind, the body, the mundane, and the practice of being alive. You can find out more about her work at nataliejaneedson.com.

Dr. Carly Schnitzler is the founder and co-director of If, Then and a lecturer in the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins. Her teaching and research center on digital rhetoric, creative computation, and the public humanities. Drop her a line at cschnit1 [at] jh [dot] edu!

Amira Hanafi is a Poet and Artist. See more of Amira’s work at https://amirahanafi.com

F.M Papaz is a Greek-Australian creative and writer who believes that there is space at the literary table for everyone and is excitedly setting up your cutlery. Her poems have appeared in Mantissa Poetry Review, Literary Revelation’s Poetry Anthology ‘Hidden in Childhood’ and The Victorian Writer. In 2023, she joined Tabula Rasa Review as an Editorial Assistant & in 2024, she became a Marketing Intern at PSNY. Connect @fmpapaz or fmpapaz.com/ings to find her monthly newsletter about living a creative life.

Best Valentine’s Day Gifts for Each Love Language Accompanied by a Rant on Redefining Love

The season of love is on the way!!! While we should show love and gratitude for our loved ones all year long, it sure is sweet to have a day dedicated to it. I know Valentine’s Day can be difficult for those who feel that constant dread of being/dying alone. (Definitely can’t relate…) BUT I’ve found that V-Day can still be sweet and special when you branch out of the idea that romantic love is the most important type of love. You have friends! And pets! And parents or parental figures! Redefining your concept of love will help with feeling less alone, especially on Valentine’s Day. It’s important to give a gift that makes them feel special, heard and understood. I have compiled for you a list of the gifts that I think each love language would appreciate most. And remember, anyone can be a lover!!!

Receiving Gifts:

It may seem obvious to gift jewelry, but here is the thing: you need to specifically gift it in the color that your loved one wears. Massive mistake of gifting jewelry is getting a gold girlie something silver. They will say a very sweet thank you and then only wear it when around you. You’ve gotta respect the aesthetic baby. If jewelry is not your or their thing, us gift receiving lovers love trinkets. Those who feel special by receiving gifts are truly not expecting something expensive. It’s not about the money. Receiving a gift says to us: Even when I’m alone I think of you.

Words of Affirmation:

Shamelessly and in my personal opinion, the perfect gift is to get them one of our personalized typewriter poems! From my side of things, I see your google searches. “How to write a love poem.” “Poem for girlfriend.” “Love poem for girlfriend.” “Valentine’s Day poem example.” My darlings, we are here to help you. We have loads of poets at your service to write something specific to and for your lover(s) that is also incredibly aesthetic and cute. Give it a try!

Acts of Service:

There is no one on this earth who does not have a list of projects that they are so totally going to do some day at some time. I cannot be the only one who has a trunk full of items I have collected over the years because one day I will need it for an art project. Help your lover get started on their project! Go to the store to get the extra things needed. Bring them snacks and water to bite and sip while they work on it. Do the chores that are keeping them from having the time to do said project. For our acts of service lovers, it really is the little things that count.

Quality Time:

If you haven’t made a reservation for dinner yet, you probably will not get one at the place that you want. We all mistakes and that is so fine! If your honey or bestie enjoys quality time and trying new things together, it’s your lucky day to be reading this article. Our NYC Poetry Brothel is on Valentine’s Day this year and I promise you it is an experience that you and they will not forget. For those who do not know, it is an immersive literary cabaret that fuses poetry, activism, vaudeville, burlesque & magic with 1-on-1 poetry readings. Picture this: you walk down the stairs to the venue, as you walk in the door you are greeted by our lovely poetry whores ready to seduce you into exchanging a token to get brought into a private space and have poetry read directly to you. I can truly tell you that is not an experience you will get anywhere else.

Physical Touch:

I have never been good at this one. Take a nap together??? Try to imitate those pictures of the cats that look like little hearts with your bodies! Kiss them on the face! (This includes your friends! There is literally nothing stopping you from giving your friend a little forehead kiss.) Hold hands walking through the park and play along when people mention how cute of a couple you and your friend are. Lie through your teeth about how you just got engaged but the ring is at the shop for sizing. Run your fingers through their hair. Intimacy is not just for romantic lovers!!!

The bottom line is that true love comes from understanding them fully. Try this year to show everyone in your life that you love that you love them. We all need a little treat to get us through the day. Cheers! <3

Poet Math

You’ve heard of girl math. You’ve heard of boy math. But have you heard of… poet math?

Poet math is the ways in which we use mental gymnastics and acrobatics to rationalize our silly little habits and desire to write and read anytime, anywhere. It justifies, rationalizes, and whispers into our ear don’t worry, you’ve earned it. Follow along to see if our minds think alike. Cheers!

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• Poet math is believing that if I bought a book for someone else, I didn’t spend any money…

• Poet math is believing that a new notebook is an opportunity to write more, making it an investment in your future. And if it’s pretty to look at, it is an investment in your mental health. Economics!

• Poet math tells us it doesn’t count if you’re late if you were writing a poem in your notes app on the way there.

• Poet math justifies that $25 submission fees don’t count if you get an encouraging rejection letter.

• Poet math is wholeheartedly concluding that if you write best at cafés, $10 lattes are a career-based investment.

• Poet math is only writing Haikus to save money on ink.

• Poet math is thinking that a poem is an appropriate gift for any occasion. The fact that it doesn’t cost anything is merely a coincidence!

• Poet math is romanticizing your dead end job as an inspirational struggle that connects you to your favorite authors.

• Poet math causes us to make extraordinary efforts such as living WELL beyond our means, to cure or prevent writers block.

Relate to us or have your own? Let us know on Insta! We always love to hear from you. 💖

2023 Holiday Poetry Horoscopes

It’s holiday season and we’re seeing so many beautiful things in store for you, poetry besties! We’ve been sharing poetry horoscopes with our PSNY Members and this month we’re spreading the cheer for poetry-lovers everywhere!

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Aries

Your strive to be the best takes you places. Maybe not always the best places, but places nonetheless! December is the season of joy and celebration and fights at the dinner table… Remember to choose your battles wisely this year. You deserve a happy holiday season just as much as the next fiery sign! If you’re looking for a reprieve, come join us for a glass of wine and a night of learning about poet and cultural critic Alejandra Pizarnik. (Check out our holiday market for discounts!) We think it will be right up your alley.

Gemini

For the genuine Gemini December is bound to be, while gloomy and grey, a time of practicing gratitude, giving and getting! (Alright, done with the alliteration.) Picking the perfect present can be near painful due to your indecision. And while practicality may not be your strong suit, don’t panic. We invite you to give the gift of poetry this season. (Alright, I lied. Now I’m done.) Happy holidays to you and we hope to see you at one of our happenings! (OKAY, I’m done.)

Leo

Hello lovely Leos! The holiday season was MADE for you all. Maybe not as great as Leo season, (Birthdays are a holiday.) it’s time to lean into your generous and warm-hearted nature to celebrate others. (Definitely not because giving means getting…) It’s okay to splurge on yourself as well! We’d love for you to check out our holiday market to find the perfect personalized present for your loved ones, and yourself. Cheers!

Libra

Hello fellow Libras! We hope you’ve had a year of love and harmony. You deserve it! It’s the season of sharing and we’d love to celebrate such a season with you. Picking the perfect present is maybe our worst nightmare? (Fun fact for you: PSNY is chock full of Libras! So we really get it.) If you want something personalized for each of your lovers, check out our holiday market. We think you’d especially love our commissioned poems. Our poets will write your love language so you don’t have to.

Sagittarius

Holiday season? I think you mean Sagittarius season… It’s your time to shine and be grateful you were born early enough to not have your birthday on Christmas. Can you imagine? No thank you! It is the time to splurge on yourself a little. Looking for an idealistic adventure to look forward to as we bare this winter? We have a feeling Poetry Camp night spark your interest. Disappearing into the woods surrounded by creatives? Yes please!

Aquarius

Happy holidays to our favorite humanitarian! As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on the last 12 months. Emphasis on reflect. (Not the same thing as overthink!) As the most outspoken zodiac of the signs, it is a great time of the year for you to express gratitude to your loved ones and get them (and yourself!) something as unique as you are! Our holiday market has plenty of options for you — from wine to workshops, we know you’ll find something that catches your eye. Feel free to think on it, we’ll be here until the end of the year.

Taurus

We salute you, Taurus, for the devotion and stability you bring into the world. It could use more Tauruses! (Taurusi?) December is the best month to spread love and admire beauty as the city lights up and people cheer. If you want to delve into the kindness that runs deep in your veins and find a personalized gift to your loved ones (or yourself!), check out our holiday market to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list.

Cancer

While it may not technically be your season, what’s more cancer-esque than a season of cozy. candle-lit homes and families sitting around the fire? This month, try and explore celebrating the season out in the world! But if that’s too much for your gentle heart, we welcome you to create community with us virtually from the comfort of your bed. Confessional poetry? What’s more Cancer than that. (And Taylor’s moon is in Cancer too… just saying.)

Virgo

Welcome to December Virgos! You’ve worked hard this year (as per usual) and it’s time to be a little selfish and give yourself the grace to take a break as the year comes to an end. Sit by the fire! Read a book from the TBR list! Buy new books and chapbooks instead (or read Milk Press for free) for yourself or others. Whatever you decide, we wish you the best and would love to see you at one of our happenings. (Discounted until the end of the year!) No stress, we will be here when you decide to give yourself a break. <3

Scorpio

This holiday season is a time to celebate all of the people who stood by your side this past year. You might just find that your love with be reciprocated more when you speak your love gently to your loved ones. Poetry can be hard, but if you pour your heart out to one of our poets, they can help you express those deeply passionate feelings that you have. Take your time, we’re here when you need us.

Capricorn

It is almost the new year! While the world is drinking hot cocoa and listening to Mariah Carey, we’re not judging youfor assessing the fiscal quarter. Someone’s gotta do it! (And it’s you.) As we celebrate the holiday season, it’s time to tell your friends and family how much you love them. The presents you are looking for are likely to be practical. Which isn’t a bad thing! Check out our holiday market for some gifts that fit the budget, and the personality of your aforementioned loved ones. There’s truly something for everyone.

Pisces

Happy holidays to our gentle, loving sign! We hope your year was full of love platonic and romantic alike. You deserve the best from people because you give the best of yourself. As you search for the best gifts to give those loved ones, just know that we’ve got options for you. From event discounts to PSNY merch, you just might find the perfect thing for someone (or everyone) on your list. And remember, it’s okay give to yourself a little something too! Go be a little selfish.

twenty-one ways to prosper as a child of a dying world

by Anne Gallagher

1. Never take clean socks for granted

2. Make your bed every morning

3. Never buy college textbooks. Do people still go to college?

4. Wipe front to back

5. Eat your lab grown vegetables

6. Call your mother

7. Call your representatives

8. Go on walks

9. Go on walks and do your best to avoid falling flaming branches (if you even still have

   trees)

10. Flossing is really important. It’s not lame to floss.

11. Try not to panic about the future, you’re probably not going to have one anyway so why

    freak out about it now?

12. Give yourself an hour a day to read, draw, or write

13. Rising sea levels provide fantastic waves for body surfing. Or normal surfing. Whatever

    floats your boat!

14. Florida is gone-- get over it.

15. So is California. You can mourn that one a little. But not too much.

16. The past is the past! Try not to be too angry with your great grandparents for placing

    wealth over you or your spawn’s well being-- maybe you would have done the same.

17. Organize

18. Collaborate

19. Yell, scream, and or cry cry cry about the injustice of it all.

20. Gather some friends and storm some politician’s palatial mansion-- torches optional but

    definitely encouraged.

21. Learn to dance in the acid rain

Ten Poet Pairs Who Would Have Been Best Friends If They Were Born in the Same Period

Written by Jane Brinkley, Festival Development Intern

Sappho and Adrienne Rich

Though one was born in Lesbos and the other in Baltimore, both boast a generational re-innovation of what it means to be a gay woman– Sappho with her love poems, Adrienne with her introduction of the term “compulsory heterosexuality.” To fall in love with another woman– to fall in love with letters and poems –maybe these things would make them good community members. But if not, they could at least commune with each other, critiquing work over a couple of drinks and commiserating over what it means to be a queer writer in this– and any– time.

Lord Byron and T.S. Eliot

Known for their adaptation of modern themes in surprising ways and dying of diseases of the lung, these two men separated by time and an ocean offered similar lyrics of being and love befitting their personal experiences. Maybe they wandered similar streets looking agape at the night sky, maybe they sat on similar benches as they composed similar poems. Both often assigned as long-form writers to new students learning to annotate and analyze, they might share a laugh or build a friendship imagining the worlds their poems have built in the hearts of poets new and old.

Emerson and Mary Oliver

This one is fairly obvious– nature bends toward the page when it comes to both authors. Though Oliver writes a hundred years or so after Emerson, the two likely wandered in the early morning dew and thought of flowers and mountains and what it means to be free, even if they belonged to different schools of poetry. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to belong to the world? Who knows– yet Walt and Mary might, writing on behalf of any and everyone who wanders.

Baudelaire and Allen Ginsberg

If the heartbeat of the metropolis were a genre, both of these poets would be in the business of capturing it– though they dealt with different moments, one in Paris and one in New York, their long-form poems of radical change, of fervor and the death of culture, work well in concert. Though Ginsberg’s disciples wouldn’t likely read too much Baudelaire, there is no doubt that they would have been friends if given the chance.

Ocean Vuong and Langston Hughes

As gay writers in the city writing of diaspora, belonging, and change, these men would have much to talk about. Reviews call them pariahs and voices of a generation, they’re headers on recommended reading lists for social justice and change, but most importantly their prose and poetry sings with an understated quality of the quotidian, little moments that build up into a resolute and alchemical change in feeling across neighborhoods and then worlds of meaning.

Maggie Nelson and Anne Sexton

Nelson wrote her thesis at Wesleyan on Sexton, but that isn’t the only reason we see these two women as being part of the same poetic family. Nelson’s brash and prosaic language and Sexton’s feminist confessionalism belong on the same bookshelf, and not only for their literary similarities– they share a certain feminine yet brutal verve that transcends the particularities of their personal oeuvres. Besides, what makes better Sunday brunch conversation than the inherent carnality of womanhood and its attending frustrations? At the very least, this is a meet-up I would like to attend.

ten things poets don't want you to know

Written by Heikki Huotari

These trees are helices, all saints and sinners

per their birth certificates, unloved or loved with

strings attached. A blushing husband in a blushing

husband's body, you would choose the barber with

the bad haircut, the dentist with the crooked teeth,

the cop that's black and blue.

As hemispheres are glued together crudely

so entangled cantilevers are grandfathered, four and

twenty to a pie. To monopeds on unicycles there is

no emotion but in person, advanced placement or

domesticated carnivore. Let's stipulate im-

provisation, Chubby Checker, like we did in 1964.

Unmitigated hummingbirds belittle your

position. Barriers are bustle-supplemented. On the

butter sculpture you like best perhaps you'll pin this

ribbon. Every deity a distribution, my center of

gravity is yours. So subsequent to radiator failure

you may stay in Grant's Pass, Oregon forever.

how to discuss your ex-lover

Written by Nicolette Daskalakis

Speak of them in the past tense, like they are deceased, or moved to a far-off country

devoid of an internet connection and cell reception.

Do not use their name in conversation, refer to them instead as “a friend of mine” or

“someone I knew.” This is less intimidating to present and future romantic prospects.

Allow them to take on the qualities of an estranged elementary school friend or a

distant cousin whose name you occasionally forget. Always occasionally forget their

name.

When someone mentions them, nod slowly, like you’re trying to remember what their

face looks like. Try to forget their face, especially if the person you’re talking to has a

face like their face.

If you find yourself in conversation with someone who regularly sees them, do not ask

about them. Instead, talk about yourself, preferably using a lot of positive adjectives

like wonderful and amazing, even if adjectives like shitty and depressed would be more

accurate.

Rewrite memories as to make the new ones more accessible in conversation: Go to the

museums you went to together, with someone new. Eat at the restaurants you ate at

together, with someone new. Listen to the music you listened to together, with

someone new. Speak about something new, with someone new.

Avoid discussing your ex-lover.

january blue (night I)

Written by Evan Neiden

the night i lost january, they were playing pretty music on the radio

[we interrupt this broadcast to bring]

the music told me first, and then the calls came in

[you breaking news tonight a body was]

i turned the music up until i couldn’t hear the ringing

[found washed up, frozen on the edge of lake michigan]

i don’t remember what they were playing on the radio but

[the body was waterlogged past recognition but]

i remember i listened in all night long

[whatever the cause, it happened weeks ago]

even as, hour after hour, my ringing phone went quiet; even

[before the body found its way into the water, it was]

when the sun came up and the frequency went

[dead.]

dead.

[once again,]

the night i lost january was the last night anyone called, it was

[those investigating could not identify the deceased but hey are]

the last night i called myself my name

[still attempting to put a name to the body; the coroner was]

and found something else in the radio silence

[unable to determine an exact time of death, but]

I don’t know whether their name was really

[they’ve surmised that the individual died sometime in]

january

[january]

but it’s my name now

[now back to your regularly scheduled programming]

and tonight, as i listen to the radio

[good night]

my name is pretty music too

Clickbait Review: How To B*tch to Strangers on a Park Bench

Written by Nate Rosenfield

Each line in Popular Longing seems to drift up from the presence of a dear friend seated right beside you, laughing at how strange and sad life turned out to be. Published this year by Copper Canyon Press, Natalie Shapero’s new collection names the desires, fears, and inadequacies only those closest to us seem to understand, but all of us silently witness and endure. True to its name, Popular Longings is a study of what people want: “people'' observed in the broadest terms by the humdrum pastimes that ferry them through life (jobs, grocery stores, art galleries, tourist attractions, funerals) and “longings” presented in their crudest, most accessible forms—universal, sordid, and thoroughly commercialized (the new restaurant to try, the flowers he didn’t get you, the small town historical reenactment, the jewelry you’ll be buried in). Reading the collection feels like people-watching with a brilliant cynic who knows you better than yourself, and can effortlessly speak to the symbolic meaning of what surrounds you. Natalie Shapero is that stranger in the park you’re glad you happened to sit beside.   

Although the collection depicts the nuances of interiority, it’s main object is how our inner worlds react to social conventions, particularly the market-driven forces that dominate so much of our lives. Why do we go to museums? What does our garbage say about us? How did we interpret the branded blanket the company gave us as a reward for our hard work? These questions are anything but commonplace when Shapero asks them. 

Her observations possess many of the same qualities as a roadside bomb. What seemed perfectly ordinary suddenly becomes lethal under her gaze. With biting humor and insight, Shapero tallies all the ways our dreams have been bought and sold to us, obsessively rummaging through every dark corner of her thoughts in search of some unconscious urge left untouched. Her despair, her pessimism, her immaturity, her hatred, unsayable and unthinkable longings for death and blind retribution—every last item is flipped over and torn apart, but at every turn the market seems to have her cornered. 

The humor and honesty that colors the collection allows us to share in Shapero’s desperate search with a sense of amity, but what she uncovers is hardly reassuring. Each encounter with our collective desires begins to resemble an abiding lack we can never fill (“How to feign lust for whatever is on offer. / How the largest possible quantity / of anything is a lifetime”). When the paint and gloss are worn away, Shapero shows us that essentially what we want is to live as long as we can; yet this seems to be the worst possibility imaginable in the life we’ve built for ourselves—the bulk of which consists of producing and consuming what will ultimately become junk through quiet, unthinking acts of destruction. As Shapero says, “What are our choices [...] might I suggest / LESS IS MORE against MORE IS MORE?”. But what does Popular Longing suggest we do in a condition such as this? 

The answer you would expect from a poet—that art can uplift us into a life of meaning—is the object of Shapero’s sharpest criticism. Art is a running theme throughout Popular Longing. Shapero depicts it as an attempt to escape or destroy the conventions that restrain us through reflection and criticism, but one that inevitably fails—corrupted by the forces of commercialization that it seeks to destroy. In the poem “Man at His Bath” we see this state of entrapment boldly on display: 

Six years ago the big museum sold eight famous paintings

to purchase, for unspecified millions, 

Gustave Caillebotte’s MAN AT HIS BATH. 

Now it’s hip to have a print of it, 

and whenever I see one hung for decoration, 

I’m almost certain that this is what Caillebotte

had in mind when he broke out the oils

in 1884: some twenty-first-century bitch in Boston

catching a glimpse of a framed reproduction, 

recollecting a study about how washing oneself may induce

a sense of culpability[...]

What’s truly for sale in the metaphoric museums through which Shapero guides us is a mass longing for freedom, escape, and revolt. Shapero often associates artistic works with spectacular displays of violence, disfigurement, or suicide, but these acts of destruction are understood by everyone involved to be simply a playful exercise: harmless, lustful, fun. In the poem “Don’t Spend It All in One Place” destroying oneself or the art that claims to represent you is presented as the highest form of expression: the essence of the priceless objects draped across prestigious (high-security) gallery walls. Rather than escaping the monetization of life, however, these artworks simply recreate it—a theme Shapero splatters throughout Popular Longing in bold and terrifying colors:

[...] specific paintings

enter into cycles of finding themselves slashed

and restored, punched through and restored, effaced

by aerosol and then restored. Once a painting

gets famous for having absorbed some disturbance, 

everyone wants to have a go. It’s like the woods

where a few people killed themselves and then all

of a sudden all these tourists were planning

pilgrimages there to do the same.

Shapero doesn’t separate her work from this dilemma. Quite the opposite—Popular Longing actively entices this same lust for destruction, provoking us to mock, scorn and delight in our self-hatred with abandon. With the drive and sneering scorn of a thrashing punk song, Shapero’s lines pull you in just to pummel and toss you around. The exits unreachable, the sound blaring, each stanza leaves you trying desperately not to fall down, as the comforts you vaguely took for granted are dragged across the stage to be jeered at and kicked around: love (“We often ate late by flameless / candles and took turns choosing / how best to be disposed of”), family (“Don’t worry. Wars are like children— / you create one, offer scant / effort, then call it botched as the years / accrue, go off and make / a new one with somebody else. / A chance to finally get it right”), the future (“The future, with its color / palette of airport whites and its / unrushed glace, its involute / beckoning. I see it. I can see it. At least / somebody wants me”), the past (“I’m ready to stop remembering. The trouble is / there’s nobody else who can do it.”), and, god knows, the present (“it’s juvenile / to cry for the everyday—so get over / yourself, I say / to the rat, who squeaks each time the dog / bites down, sounding just like those rubber chew / toys, which I suddenly understand are made to make / the noise of something getting killed—”). 

Shapero draws you down into the pit at the center of Popular Longing through cold-blooded wit, torn up elegance, and entrancing ferocity. You’ll be glad to have been ripped apart by such practiced hands (well worth the ticket price of only $17).  But her most provocative act is that she never lets you forget what you paid for. Shapero designs her verses to constantly stimulate this collective craving for destruction, to remind you at every turn that when art plays this game—leading a person to imagine they’ve broken free from all restraint—it’s simply another lockspring clicking into place. She offers no way out. The René Magritte epigraph at the start of the collection stands like a warning over the entrance: I do not like money, neither for itself nor for what it can buy, as I want nothing we know about. 

But how seriously are we to take Shapero’s nihilistic leanings? Her humor often makes it difficult to tell. At times a hush falls over her verse, and you feel as if you’ve been allowed to walk into the quiet of her innermost fears. But irony always shoulders its way in somehow and disturbs the scene, like in the following lines from “And Stay Out”: 

Rough days I’m trying to live

as though dead, to satisfy

or at least dampen the inclination 

to actually die. I’m holding 

mainly still. I’m forming my face

into no specific expression. 

I’m lowering the lights

so I can’t see my poster

of one world leader grinning

and shattering, over the head

of another, a trick bottle 

of champagne—a dead person

wouldn’t be looking at that, 

or at anything. 

The one moment in the collection where she seems to reach out her hand, searching genuinely for an answer, is in the poem “Some Toxin.” After lambasting human life as essentially a pollutant and bantering about the benefits of different ways and times of dying, she says: 

[...]All I want is for someone

To understand me, but it seems my keenest friends

and I—we’ve scattered. We’ve struggled for peace,

for permanence, and somehow in that struggle, 

we’ve ventured far from each other.

Rather than presenting this longing as the seed of some solution, as one might expect,  she simply says “[...] this is what / we get. This is our penance.” There is no hope in hope it seems. 

Or if there is, it’s not of interest here. Popular Longing is concerned with where a certain brand of collective desire leads us.  There may be promise in a life understood in other terms, but Shapero’s focus here is the brutality and futility of our market-driven cravings—it’s their essence she’s after, not a life that exists apart from them. If you’re looking for uplift, try somewhere else. What Shapero does offer is the honesty and grit to show us how implicated we truly are in the mess we’ve made of this world—and to do so with the cleverness, craft, and poise of someone willing to account for themselves. Like a true friend, Shapero doesn’t try to prop you up with false promises. She simply assures you, with all of her artfulness and integrity, that to be understood for all you are is better than comforting yourself with lies, or drifting away into obscurity. To turn misery into a joke that invites and restores you—that’s Shapero’s gift, and it’s not easy to put a price on. 

How to Cross Bright Country

Written by Shari Caplan/Madam Betty Boom

Count street lights when you’re unsure

how far you’ve walked

under the fluorescent suns of cities

thinking you’re a coyote

which legs are your legs are your legs are you

how many times tall tragedy can repeat

Let the plane fall back from you

as the camera pans the present

as the camera forgets my scene

your eyes will find horizons in every passing skirt

in every passing horizon a present.

Drinks with names like Lemon Scorpion

served on silver delivered to you

will cover your mind with my lips like the curtain

will curtain your lips like night in the desert '

served on silver delivered by you

with a grimace

you grimace most charmingly and get away with this

get away

will sizzle hot as your nerves, hands in my shirt

you hand a horizon into my shirt

can I keep it?

Stand in the cool grotto and press

your head to pink stucco

messages to me I’ll never read

because they’re sand-writ

because you mean nothing by them

because you mean nothing to me

except sunflower stalks shot through my ventricles, blue planets swinging backwards, frustration of pendulums, houses painted and ready for families who can’t find the key to what they’ve already mortgaged, red wax peeled from lucky cheese like lips from lips from my luck to your lips to you oh you oh you oh love oh too

But this is about your journey.

Strip naked in the ocean

an exercise in impermanence if someone (not me) steals your pants (though I would)

an exercise in feeling how cold you are

could you feel where you are

can you feel the limb you lost

which legs are your legs are your legs are you

where there are actresses in bikinis

you’ll never think of me again

there are actresses in bikinis you’ll never think of again.

Think of me again.

Write your movie

from a hill looking at plastic people.

from the hill of your un-climbable heart,

king of the mountain, with no attendants.

king of a mountain with only room for one.

not about impossible futures, but in the breath,

to bring you home wherever you take it, like a plane

You don’t know if you’re ready to board.

You’re ready

I am selfish.

I have no room.

Only for you.

Count street lights when you’re unsure

how far you’ve walked

under the fluorescent suns of cities

thinking you’re a coyote

Let the plane fall back from you

I am selfish.

Drinks with names like Lemon Scorpion

you hand a horizon into my shirt

can I keep it?

Stand in the cool grotto and press

except sunflower stalks shot through my ventricles, blue planets swinging

But this is about your journey.

Strip naked in the ocean

you’ll never think of me again

Write your movie

to bring you home wherever you take it, like a plane

You don’t know if you’re ready to board.

You’re ready.

THESE WORDS TOO COULD BE YOURS FOR A PRICE

Written by Stephanie Berger

Dearly beloved     I’ll be your host 

tonight     a very sassy ghost     your auctioneer

for we are gathered here     to celebrate 

the union of two     beautiful clauses     I’ll start 

the bidding at a hundred dollars     Just kidding!

At the low, low price     of a single single     I told him 

to say that     to put it in     those very words 

to auction off this sentence     which is not mine 

to keep locked inside     lady's gut causes 

truth decay    over time    shut down    

gets expensive    depreciates so   I would encourage you     

generally     of course     support your 

ectoplasmic lips       opening      thirsty skeletal              

but also     to divest      yourself of all       

belonging     to live with a pack    

of hungry street dogs     for once    in your life    

you could empty yourself    like a bucket      but of what     

do I know      really     about life?     

I am not Jesus      nor have I ever been      

hungry     I did not live     through the Black      

Death & become      modern     

with the rest of you    

Cedarwood

Written by Jackie Braje

At times and        away from           I

litter     my little words         along    the horizontal 

like crumbs     a             dumb distance.

Away  from        is   how  moss          extends from

oak.         Sidewalks  of      childhood        and women

breaching them.      They walk            away   from   

and back         again.                 Everything I say     now

is          away from       them.   My         idealism

concerns them       in that it          moves from   .

I already exist.             This, a child’s     predicament;

some pristine        thing opposite      its      dusty

origin.      Conditions      of this     fabulous

conflict         require walking.              Away from 

a white      dress      waits its           coffee stain 

runneth over.     Everything     remains to       be     

constructed          before arriving. 

I went             away from,              I’m sorry    . 

Even     sorry is a way           of getting         away from.   

In language     is a    full range   one      can walk      across ;

I   listen   and       I’m carried         away from. 

Grew up      in a house            built   over      a grand  collage. 

Furniture   legs             and stationary      things

push         away from .       When handing,         say,   a rose

to someone                  extend     it       away  from.

I’d       never   label     a form as             feminine            

but if I  did        plural    would be its  shape.         The rose

leaves     one hand            to join    another;     salt

takes      with pleasure    when   waves                     away from.

Voicemail for Christine

Written by Jane Brinkley

Could we be cruel in arms and like it?

You left last night, and, waking, still

in the velvet chair, I changed my mind.

I always liked your angle of gesture, its poke,

like a thermometer, like Vivaldi,

his first note, the rest of them rote,

I always liked those libertarian henchmen

in old Gothic yarns who will do or kill

anything for a buck–

pare the ribbon from the Duchess’ neck,

not exactly roast but certainly warm

the liver of some heiress

until it’s full like a trophy,

a new backyard for practice,

big enough to kick in,

“recite the Lord’s prayer,” they’d say,

their victim feeling funny, under

Frost Bridge, the ice growing runny,

Their favorite though not for function’s sake,

more as a matter of taste.

The Carps and Oscars, so nice,

the bridge bucolic.

“You get me,” one might say to the other,

before landing a punch,

the bruises pretty dark tomorrow,

and awfully nice to press at.

Though they won’t talk about it like this.

narc support group #1

Written by tova g.

Inspired by Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

you rummaged through our mother’s house like a raccoon in a dumpster behind a westchester

diner & ran 

away with memories of me, my hummed autobiography in disjointed colors like maya angelou’s 

caged bird.

since the month i considered you dead i’ve been thinking about how you never taught me how to

mourn the living.

(you did think yourself the aristotle of death. your relationship became intimate when you 

fucked him 

with his black sweatshirt & scythe necklace in the back of a prius in a burger king parking lot.)

i remember when i 

was eleven i dissected a cow eye & my friend hid it in her mom’s car. how can i gauge the

time of last 

breath if there’s no nearly-warm body splayed on a cold autopsy table. if i could i would hold

the same rusty knife 

as in my sixth grade classroom & like michelangelo crafting david (with poise &

godliness) etch 

your skull until what you stole from me spilled out onto the unforgiving steel. i wonder how i

would feel seeing 

my love for myself bloodied & undulating for the first time. maybe it would be like reuniting

with a long lost lover

after twenty years. (the only thing i know about jewish kabbalah is that there’s a divine spark  

of god in everything, 

including us. i’ve been searching for it in myself for six months but i’ve had a nagging feeling

that it’s in a box 

under your bed wherever you are, a nightlight that burns a little too bright to let you sleep, &

unknowingly

keeps us both awake at two a.m., your own dorian grey portrait you hope one day 

no one will find.)

I'll Still Be a Bitch in Hell

Written by Lisette Bower

What if I never fell from heaven?

Maybe I crawled out of hell before

anyone could drag me back under.

Always full of heartburn and spite

that holy water just can’t put out.

I’ll drown in the sins of your God

and take you down with me.

I’m not here for redemption or

what you call salvation. I’m just

looking for a shitty guardian angel

and enough nails to dig a grave.

Paint them in red shellac and

peel them off one by one. We

can gift them to the devil then

revel in our wild deliverance.

I don’t want higher sanctity, if

it means always wearing white

and never making love in wildfires.

Ablaze, my body will be as I knew it

nasty, unhinged, and unrestrained.