Get Lit Minute

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). Source

This 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 close

the door to a room

the room is not finished.

It is resting. Temporarily.

Glad to be without you

for a while.

Now it has time to gather

its 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 this

forever. But the blue chair looks best

with the red pillow. So you might as well

leave it that way.

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 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). Source

This 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 touch

until they did. I shouldn’t have laughed but I laughed

at their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow.

Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for dead

at 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 palest

flowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinky

flower 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

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! Source

This 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! bitches

stuck up! bitches

customer service turned sour! bitches.

can i help you? bitches

next in line! bitches

i like this purse 'cause it makes me look mean bitches

can you take a picture of my outfit? full length!

get the shoes in! bitches

i always wear heels to la fiesta! and i never take 

them off! bitches

all men will kill you! bitches

all men will leave you anyway! bitches

you better text me when you get home okay! bitches

pray before the plane takes off! bitches

pray before the baby comes! bitches

she has my eyes my big mouth, my fight! bitches

sing to the scabs on her knees when she falls 

down! bitches

give abuelita bendiciones! bitches

it's okay not to be liked! bitches

on our own til infinity! bitches

the vengeful violent

pissed prissed and polished

lipstick stained on an envelope,

i'll be damned if i'm compliant! bitches

the what did you call us? 

what did you say to us? 

what's that kind of love called again?

bitches!

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, 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. Source

This 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 walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick 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 smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress

to 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 far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat," "Go ahead — you first," "I like your hat."

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, Camonghne 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. Source

This 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 am

of prestige but can’t really prove it. Not if 

my hands are tied. Not if my smartphone is

seized. 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 it

like I own it, taking it to the bathroom with 

the tampons—like, look at me, I am so agent

and with all this agency I can just deploy 

death at any time. The truth is

that I’m already on the clock, I’m just a few 

notches down on the “black-girl-with-bad

mouth” list, the street lights go out and I’m 

just at the mercy of my own bravery and

their punts of powerlessness, their “who 

the hell do you think you are’s?”

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, 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. Source

This 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 no
mountain but rather
a monsoon of imperfect
thunder love me. When
I am blue in my face
from swallowing myself
yet wearing my best heart
even if my best heart
is a century of hunger
an angry mule breathing
hard or perhaps even
hopeful. A small sun.
Little & bright.

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 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. Source

This episode includes a reading of his poem, "my graduation speech," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.

"my graduation speech"

i think in Spanish
i write in English

i want to go back to puerto rico,
but i wonder if my kink could live
in ponce, mayagüez and carolina

tengo las venas aculturadas
escribo en spanglish
abraham in español
abraham in english
tato in spanish
"taro" in english
tonto in both languages

how are you?
¿cómo estás?
i don't know if i'm coming
or si me fui ya

si 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 jodío
ahí supe que estamos jodíos

english or spanish
spanish or english
spanenglish
now, dig this:

hablo lo inglés matao
hablo lo español matao
no sé leer ninguno bien

so it is, spanglish to matao
what i digo
               ¡ay, virgen, yo no sé hablar!

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, 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. Source

This 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 they
were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

— Robert Frost, “Out, Out”

In Chicago, kids are beaten. they crack
open. they're pavement. they don't fight, they die.
bodies bruised blue with wood. cameras catch
us killing, capture danger to broadcast

on Broadways. we Roseland stars, made players
for 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

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. Source

This 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 mother

We carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our hearts

We carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats

We carry scars from proxy wars of greed

We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides

We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds

We carry our islands sinking under the sea

We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new life

We carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other shore

We carry railroads, plantations, laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…built on our ancestors’ backs

We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests

We carry yesterday, today and tomorrow

We’re orphans of the wars forced upon us

We’re refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes

And 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, hope

As we drift…in our rubber boats…from shore…to shore…to shore…

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, 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. Source

This 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 halting

Support the show

Support the show