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“Hip-hop is Ralph Ellison, who once said the blues is like running a razor blade along an open sore.” In this audio recording from the 1996 album Flippin’ the Script: Rap Meets Poetry released by Mouth Almighty Records, author and critic Greg Tate reads his poem “What Is Hip Hop?” The influential journalist and author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America (Simon & Schuster, 1992), died at the age of sixty-three on December 7, 2021.
“The name means ‘odd.’ / The name means ‘queer.’ / It can denote an ‘odd fish,’” writes Mark Wunderlich in his poem “Wunderlich.” The poem serves as an exploration of the poet’s last name, interlacing a historical overview of his family’s ancestry with suggestive definitions that compound and contradict. “The name means ‘electric organ maestro.’ / The name means ‘famous botanical illustrator.’” This week write a poem inspired by your last name. Allow yourself to get carried away with fact and fable, letting your imagination spin a new history for your family name.
“Sea turtle, be snapping. See poetry, be action.” In this video, Mason Granger reads his poem “Sea Turtle” for Write About Now Poetry, which hosts a weekly spoken word open mic series in Houston.
Calling all poets with a chapbook manuscript! New York City’s Center for Book Arts (CBA) is accepting submissions for its annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition. The winning poet’s chapbook will be published by CBA in a limited edition designed by a book artist. The winner will also receive a cash prize of $500, an honorarium of $500 to participate in a reading with CBA, and a weeklong residency at Millay Arts in Austerlitz, New York. This year’s judge is Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge.
Using the online submission system, submit a poetry manuscript of up to 21 pages (or 450 lines) with a $30 entry fee by December 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
A tradition for over twenty-five years, the Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition has previously honored work by poets including Miriam Bird Greenberg, Luisa A. Igloria, and Katerina I. Ramos-Jordán. Bianca Rae Messinger won last year’s competition with Parallel Bars.
“I pick up the phone and send you some words / about my trans body,” reads J. Jennifer Espinoza from her poem “My Trans Body,” included in her collection Outside of the Body There Is Something Like Hope (Big Lucks, 2018), in this installment of Ours Poetica, a video series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.
