#recently been feeling in my devouring media and art era | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neriad13 · 4 years

Text

Favorite Media of 2020!

There was a large swathe of this year during which I was unable to concentrate on reading (as there probably was for a lot of other typically-frequent readers), so, as a result, I ended up listening to way more podcasts and watching way more TV shows. Not a bad thing, but boy did I read way less books than usual.

However, for the first time in a while, the amount of fiction I read was about equal with the amount of nonfiction I read. Last year’s reading resolution was to read more fiction, so...success??

I did read a lot of phenomenal fiction when I had the energy to do so this year.

Books - Fiction

The Martian - Andy Weir

This book is the hardest of the hard sci fi I think I’ve ever read. Every single aspect of it is minutely researched and calculated. The author literally wrote equations to write this book. The science is insanely impressive and yet...it never loses its sense of humor or humanity in the mix. In fact, they’re the thing that drives the entire story.

Warlock Holmes - G. S. Denning

Way early in the year I was strolling down the fantasy aisle at the library, when this cover caught my eye. I took one look at it, went “oh, this looks silly” and...proceeded to devour the entire series in a matter of weeks.

It is very silly. Especially when it’s pointing out something that was silly in the original. There’s something so satisfying about Watson immediately answering Holmes with the correct number of steps in their flat when he’s trying to make his point about how most people don’t pay attention to things like that.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Every single scenario in here could easily support an entire book. A park ranger whose job it is to contain the yearly zombie spring thaw? HECK YES. I’d read tens of thousands of words about that. A Chinese admiral who defaults, steals the government’s premier submarine, loads it up with the families of his underlings and takes to the sea for years to live in the maritime economy that has sprung up in a world where everyone is trying to escape the shore? That could be an entire movie on its own.

Every chapter was more creative than the last and as a huge worldbuilding fan, this book was so, so fun.

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

In which a queer, neurodivergent protagonist solves a mystery on a spaceship which is a microcosm of antebellum era politics! This had a beautiful, mysterious, wonder-inducing writing style and it was a joy to peer into the wildly differing minds of every single character.

Books - Nonfiction

Underland - Robert MacFarlane

In every chapter, the author visits a different hole. Basically.

It’s an exploration of caves, catacombs, mines, nuclear waste facilities and the hidden underbelly of every forest. It was fascinating. And fundamentally changed how I look at time.

Rejected Princesses - Jason Porath

After years of having enjoyed the web entries, I finally got my hands on the first book and was not disappointed.

There are the more entertaining entries, of course and the art is as charming as always, but what struck me the most were the more difficult stories. The deeper you go into this book, the more horrific it gets. The author does not hold back on the indignities suffered by the historical figures he writes about. It’s terrible...but also very, very illuminating.

The Gift of Fear - Gavin De Becker

This book - while maintaining all the essential information in it - could be pared down to one sentence in a sea of blank pages and that sentence would be: trust your instincts. End of story.

But in a world where instincts are either customarily suppressed or going haywire, it’s not quite that easy, which is why I’m glad there is more to the book.

I picked it up thinking “ha ha, betcha can’t help a person with anxiety who fears all the time already” and...what it actually ended up doing was giving me the tools to differentiate between real fear and unfounded fear. And did help with the anxiety quite a bit.

Fanfiction

Watch Over Me - cakeisatruth

A Bioshock fic from the point of view of a little sister who is learning how to trust and be an ordinary child again. Dark and sweet. An excellent combo.

All That is Visible - Ultima_Thule

An exploration of a minor character in a well researched historical context? That’s my jam! How did they know?? A Tron fic about what it’s like to be a female programmer in the 70s.

Graphic Novels

The Adventure Zone - McElroys + Carey Pietsch

Yesssssssss! It was a running-to-the-library type event whenever my library got a new volume in. The jokes are so good, the art is so lively and the ways in which they added the details that the podcast couldn’t necessarily get across is *mwah*

Trail of Blood - Shuuzou Oshimi

Hoooooooly shit, the art style of this one!! It’s beautifully detailed and expressive, sure, but the real draw for me was how it changes with the emotional state of the main character. There’s this sequence in which he’s consumed with anxiety at school and all of his classmates become blurry and unfocused, until they can’t be recognized as humans at all, that particularly sticks with me.

It’s a horror story about a kid who witnesses his loving mother push his cousin off a cliff for seemingly no reason and is then obligated by her to keep the secret, which is eating him from the inside out. It’s so good, guys, please read it.

Level Up - Gene Lien Yang/Thien Pham

A story about a kid who is haunted by his late father’s desire for him to become a gastroenterologist. It’s funny and touching and the ending gave me what I can only describe as a feeling of exhilaration. Y’know that feeling when something unexpected but not out of left field, perfectly in tune with the narrative arc and gut bustingly funny happens, all in the same panel? That one.

Film

Searching

This is a fairly standard thriller about a dad trying to find out what happened to his missing daughter. It’s also found footage...but not in the usual way, which was what made it so compelling to me. It’s told through the dad’s phone calls, google searches, social media interactions, news footage, security cameras and webcams. It was such a cool way to tell a story.

Train to Busan

There’s a lot that’s already been said about this movie and I don’t think there’s much more I can meaningfully add to that. Suffice to say that ya gotta take care of each other if you’re going to survive a zombie apocalypse!!

TV Series

My Brother’s Husband

As close to a perfect adaptation as a person can get (barring the entire conversation in English which was...oof). I was so happy when they took it a step further and showed Kana and Yaichi actually getting to meet Mike’s family.

Zumbo’s Just Desserts

I watched a lot of baking shows this year. Like...a lot. They were my much-needed comfort viewing for the year and this one was my favorite, even over The Great British Baking Show (which I LOVE). Why? Because the pastry chef for whom it’s named makes such bizarre and wonderful desserts and fosters an environment in which the competitors do the same. I’ve never seen anything like a lot of the desserts that make an appearance on this show. Every single episode was an awesome surprise and so help me, this show had better get a third season.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power

There’s also a lot that’s been said about this one, so I won’t say much more. Suffice to say: DAMN. That’s how you do an 80s toy tie-in cartoon remake.

Infinity Train

This show’s premise is probably the most unique I’ve seen in recent years. Its balance of comedy, horror and existential dread is also *mwah* I also love how much it trusts the viewer to figure things out on their own.

Primal

A late entry sliding in before the year ends! I finally got to watch the second half of the first season last weekend and it was EXCELLENT. The pacing, the brutal fight scenes, the adorable dinosaur antics, the animation, the quiet moments - *mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah*

The most emotional moment for me was the part in which the protagonists watch, with sorrow, as the rabid dinosaur who’s been trying to kill them all night dies an excruciating death.

Also it sets up a fascinating new plotline right before ending in a cliffhanger!! Another one for the ‘had better get a next season’ list.

Games

Night in the Woods

This is one that’s been on my to play list for a few years and I was so glad I finally got my hands on it. It’s like...The Millennial Experience (TM), the game. I felt so seen, playing it. The character writing was fantastic.

Prey

I don’t know why I put off finishing this for so long. I guess I wasn’t in the right alien killing headspace for a while?? Anyway, the setting is gorgeous, the alien biology is weird and cool, the ethics are delightfully murky and the interconnectedness of the station was really cool, especially in the OH SHIT moments at the end.

Podcasts

The Adventure Zone

I tried to narrow this down to one favorite arc, but found that I couldn’t do it. I love Balance for its comedy and creative energy. I love Amnesty for its drama and acting. I am loving Graduation for the depth of its world and the way in which the real story behind everything that’s happened is slowly unfurling. It’s a good podcast all around.

The Magnus Archives

Who obsessively listened to every single season while playing Minecraft in about a month? Surely not me, nooooo. Of course not.

There’s also been a lot said on this one, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ve seen things in here that I haven’t really seen elsewhere in horror. My particular favorites were the creepy psychiatric hospital in which the horror comes not from the patients, but from the denial of the doctor to believe them about their mental illnesses and every single thing related to the Anthropocene. The one with the Amazonian village made out of trash - CHILLS.

#tma #taz #prey 2017 #night in the woods #infinity train #warlock holmes #she-ra #zumbo's just desserts #a thought

10 notes · View notes

jeremystrele · 3 years

Text

Suzanne Gorman on Modernising a Mid-Century Home

Design Eye

by Lucy Feagins, Editor

The sitting room in Studio Gorman’s ‘Quarterdeck House’, featuring the sleek Jules Sofa by Duvivier, from DOMO. (right). Styling – Claire Delmar, Photo – Prue Ruscoe.

Look across the dreamy living space to the treetops beyond. To right – the tan leather Jules Sofa by Duvivier, from DOMO. Styling – Claire Delmar, Photo – Prue Ruscoe.

Studio Gorman’s approached a ‘gently gently’ design approach when renovating this mid century home on Sydney’s North Shore. Styling – Claire Delmar, Photo – Prue Ruscoe.

The Quarterdeck House by Studio Gorman. Styling – Claire Delmar, Photo – Prue Ruscoe.

Left – Suzanne Gorman of Studio Gorman. Right – the sitting room in the Quarterdeck House, featuring the Jules Sofa by Duvivier, from DOMO. Styling – Claire Delmar, Photo – Prue Ruscoe.

The Jules Sofa by Duvivier, from DOMO.

Left – Duvivier’s Josephine Armchair, with its looped leather and exposed stitching, and the Centquatre sofa, are both contemporary handcrafted furniture pieces, with all the hallmarks of classic mid century design. Available exclusively from DOMO. Photo – Martina Gemmola.

There’s nothing that sparks more passionate discussion on our social media feeds, than the subject of mid century architecture under threat of demolition.

But even if you love mid century design, and find yourself the lucky owner of a home of this era, there’s still the challenge of making these homes functional and comfortable for modern family life. For instance – where do you put a dishwasher in a 1950s kitchen? And – how do you furnish a family living room with walls of glass, lower ceilings and a significantly smaller footprint than most modern living spaces?

For interior designer Suzanne Gorman of Studio Gorman, it’s all about looking and listening closely to the existing site – and thinking very carefully about scale. Especially when it comes to selecting furniture! ‘Scale of furniture is important to get right in the typically lower ceiling height and tighter spaces of mid-century architecture’ says Suzanne. Enter DOMO, whose wide range of contemporary designer furniture and lighting covers an incredible variety of classic and modern styles, for both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Studio Gorman’s Quarterdeck House project draws on the existing mid century character of the original home, incorporating whitewashed walls, oak joinery and a palette of rust, teal and ochre. These details form the perfect backdrop for a considered edit of furniture and lighting, selected in collaboration with stylist Claire Delmar – including the sleek leather Jules sofa by French furniture brand Duvivier, from DOMO.

‘These Duvivier pieces are light in visual feel, whilst the upholstery is warm and luxurious to relax in’ says Suzanne. ‘Their shapes are like minded to the building – calm and light structured.’

With a 180 year history, Duvivier draws on traditional French craftsmanship, having originally evolved from a heritage leather saddlery business! Carefully balancing classic silhouettes with contemporary style, these handcrafted furniture pieces are sleek yet robust – perfect in any space where you want comfort and longevity, without the chunk-factor! They’re available in traditional leather, or custom fabrics.

Hi Suzanne! Can you tell is a little about your background – how did you come into interior design, and how would you describe your design approach?

I came to design in my early 40s, after a fabulous decade as a Kindergarten teacher, followed by several fun and free years as a full-time mum to our three kids (now all young adults). I’ll be forever grateful to my sister who encouraged me to re-train in design, since I was always sketching and literally obsessed by everything design and architecture (still am). She showed some of my drawings to her friend Rachel Castle, who was a true support and inspiration in the early years of my new design career, finding me my first few clients. That was 12 years ago, and I haven’t looked back.

Studio Gorman specialises in creating beautiful homes where family memories are made and where childhood is nourished – we bring a deep understanding of the kind of spaces that families find comfort in, and can play out their lives.

We have a love of various aesthetics, but mostly based around a contemporary clean feel. Our influences include art (an addiction!), fashion, architecture and travel – vicariously through print publications and blogs we devour! European and East Coast American styles inspire our work although Studio Gorman will always be essentially Australian in flavour.

Your recent work at the Quarterdeck House perfectly illustrates how to sensitively modernise a mid-century home. Tell us – how did you approach this project? What were your key goals and considerations for this home?

Looking, listening to site and to our wonderful clients brief. The serene location spoke volumes about the incredible lifestyle to be enhanced here, and the building spoke of the pure tenets of mid-century design philosophy.

The concept of form and function in mid-century architecture leads the way for a response to the interiors. Full height glass panels created a portal to the view, to the gentle beauty of the environment. Our job to was support that, in a response to our clients brief.

We were committed to keeping the original façade, preserving and respecting the streetscape where there are several other neighbouring mid-century homes. We were fortunate that the client was open to these considerations – we agreed to no broad sweeping demolition of the original features, and to taking a gently, gently approach. We carried this intention inside where we reworked the floorplan keeping original elements such as the painted brick walls, internal white-painted steel posts, and original doors and windows.

The bones of a mid-century home are important to hold onto – the architectural style will be diluted otherwise. On this basis, our design concepts and details were driven by materiality – sourcing materials and fixtures that aligned with the mid-century aesthetic was our mission! We whitewashed walls, reintroduced square format mosaic tiles, added simple white door hardware and fittings, washed oak joinery with its uniform grain sitting quietly in the form. Our use of colour took the distinctive mid-century punches of primary colour, and subtly reworked them as contemporary iterations of rust, teal and ochre.

In collaboration with stylist Claire Delmar, you selected key leather furniture pieces from Duvivier (exclusive to DOMO) to furnish Quarterdeck House – tell us why these pieces were selected / why do they work so well in this space?

Firstly, thanks for saying that! We think they work beautifully too, and love working with Claire any time we can. The living room has so much glass, it was important to bring in some comfort and softness. These Duvivier pieces are light in visual feel, whilst the upholstery is warm and luxurious to relax in. Their shapes are like minded to the building – calm and light structured, whilst providing comfort. And we love them!

What’s your advice for modernising a mid-century interior? What should homeowners consider before embarking on a renovation of a 1950s or 60’s home?

Being respectful to the philosophy of mid-century is integral – that’s got to be the starting point. It’s a great shame when people buy mid-century homes with no intention to love and nurture the unique architecture.

Our starting point would be to ask our homeowners to work out what they really love about their mid-century home, and what they might feel they are possibly missing out on with it, also. The small scale of mid-century homes can be challenging to contemporary living. Take time with the floor plan and be willing to tweak the layout to work around keeping original features. These original features convey the language of mid-century and once gone, the authentic feeling of the era and cannot be replicated.

And what about furniture selections for a mid-century home – where to start? Should mid-century homes always contain classic mid-century furniture and design? Or is there scope for combining modern pieces with classic design pieces, under one roof?

Scale of furniture is important to get right in the typically lower ceiling height and tighter spaces of mid-century architecture. Sensitivity to the internal spaces and finishes, whilst incorporating our client’s needs is where we are at.

Our approach would be to incorporate contemporary furniture to avoid a ‘museum’ feel, and to create a relaxed, luxurious and comfortable home. There is definitely scope to combine modern pieces with authentic mid-century… a lot of modern design has its roots in mid-century as a design base, so it certainly can work if curated with a light touch. Artworks and sculptures are a beautiful addition too, as it was and still is considered an important inclusion right alongside the architecture and furniture design.

What’s next for Studio Gorman?

Great question ….. we are working on a fantastic and diverse portfolio of projects this year, have enlarged our team and have moved offices to Paddington and its only March ! Small commercial projects have always been a dream and if the opportunity arose, we’d love to design boutiques or restaurants where we can showcase our love of materials, colour and art in our relaxed Australian luxe style.

For nearly 10 years, DOMO has remained Australia’s exclusive stockist of true heritage brand Duvivier.

To celebrate Duvivier’s Timeless French style, DOMO is offering up to 40% off selected pieces during their ‘French Luxury’ Promotion, across all stores nationally between Monday 19th of April until Sunday 8th of May. (20% off full price stock, 15% off custom orders placed and up to 40% off end of line items)

DOMO‘s extensive collection of designer furniture includes key brands such as Duvivier, de Sede, Ligne Roset, Wittmann, HC28 and Sika Design to name a few. Their newest showroom is now open at 516 Church Street, Richmond!

0 notes

efguffey · 7 years

Link

“Ninety percent of everything is crud.” – Theodore Sturgeon

Greetings and welcome to another installment of The Ten Percent! Every two weeks (well, roughly), Ensley F. Guffey and I use this space to take a look at the inverse of Sturgeon’s Law; in other words, the small portion of everything which is not crud. Viewed as a whole, Sturgeon was, sadly, right – the vast majority of movies, television, writing, art, and so on really is crud (trust me on this, I just saw Baywatch for the movie show I co-host) – but there has always been that slim li’l piece of heaven. The Ten Percent crosses genre boundaries, mostly because these rare gems are high quality productions which demand more of their viewer than just passive reception.

In my last column, I discussed Neil Gaiman’s American Gods which, at the time, was just about to begin its run on the Starz network. I am currently caught up on episodes and am also avidly following the comic version. American Gods just makes me smile and the high quality of the work in multiple Media (hi, Gillian Anderson!) is a revelation of how magnificent storytelling can completely transcend genre. The show has already been renewed for a second season, which reassures me that they’ll take their time telling this convoluted tale.

Much of Gaiman’s work belongs in the Ten Percent.* The last column touched on his best-known work, Vertigo’s Sandman, and if you haven’t read that (slowly, thoughtfully, and with great deliberate intent), you have an amazing treat in store for you and I’m jealous that you get to experience the Endless for the first time. However, I wanted to bring your attention to several other works of Gaiman’s that you might not know about. Yes, he’s written for Babylon 5, Doctor Who, and several of his works have been adapted for the silver screen with more on the way. But why wait?

I suggest beginning with Smoke and Mirrors, Gaiman’s first collection of short pieces. Early in his career, Gaiman would write for just about anyone who would help him pay his rent and he was honing his craft. Good short stories are actually devilishly difficult to write, because you don’t have the space and word count to mess around. Smoke and Mirrors actually contains several of my favorite pieces, including a fascinating story about one of Arthur’s knights who finds the Grail in the least likely (and most English) of places. There’s also an incredible story of old Hollywood, magic, and the grind of writing for the movies that’s not to be missed.

If you’re ready for a longer work, try starting with Neverwhere. I much prefer the book to the BBC adaptation or any of the other versions. (It’s been a comic and both a radio play and a stage play.) If I were being hard-nosed about it, I could argue that Neverwhere is very, very good, but not Gaiman’s best work. However, it is my favorite and this tale of the colorful denizens of London Below likely always will be. It helps that Gaiman has recently announced that his next work, The Seven Sisters, will be a sequel to Neverwhere. And I’m glad to the point of splitting – I’ve got a fistful of questions I want answered.

If you loved Sandman want to stay in the world of comics, pick up the four-issue version of Stardust. This was made into a film that gave Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer some juicy roles to play with, but honestly – the film is only so-so. While you could read the novelized version, I suggest the comic, which features exquisite painted illustrations by Charles Vess, a longtime Gaiman collaborator. His style perfectly complements Gaiman’s Victorian-era fairytale of a boy, a girl, and a fallen star.

Gaiman’s first novel was actually a two-person effort. Written with the late, truly great Sir Terry Pratchett, Good Omens will delight fans of Pratchett’s twisted Discworld as well as Gaiman folks. Imagine what would happen if those two got together, got silly, and decided to take a crack at The Omen and you’re ready to get started. An adaptation of this retelling of the misplaced Antichrist of the Apocalypse is coming to Amazon in 2018, so go ahead and brush up on it now.

Gaiman is a devourer of tales and myth (his latest book, Norse Mythology, is a retelling of the legends of that part of the world) and his love for these tales permeates his work. (I often wonder what a dinner party involving both Gaiman and Joseph “Monomyth” Campbell would be like, then I shake my head and decide that’s just too bizarre.) He has the rare gift of being able to write in a variety of styles and use source material without coming across as a mere copyist. Nowhere is that more evident than in his retelling of Kipling’s Jungle Book. This book, simply titled The Graveyard Book, restores the eerie qualities inherent in a tale of a child being raised by benevolent, yet unnatural, guardians that was Disney-fied out of the original Kipling. (Hey, I love “Bare Necessities” as much as the next gal, but Kipling had something far darker in mind.) Gaiman’s story never feels as if he was forcing a point to make it “fit” the Kipling version – he’s content to let his story spin on its own axle and the result is dreamlike in its perfection.

There’s more, of course. Gaiman has written for a variety of audiences, including the youngsters – even down to the picture book level. My First Big Book of Gaiman will vary by the age of the reader – for very small ones, try Chu’s Day; for the slightly older, Coraline. That one will probably be read under the covers by a few children and result in a couple of evenings with a higher electric bill than usual as the young fry keep the lights on – just in case.

He’s a treasure and Hollywood is finally discovering his unsettling, yet oddly moral, works so soon the rest of the world will be claiming they’ve been fans of his since Woodstock. Beat the rush and start reading him now. You won’t be sorry.

*Plus, he’s just a good guy. Patient and funny with his fans, and willing to do strange things for a good cause. Case in point, his willingness to read the entire Cheesecake Factory menu to raise money to help displaced refugees. Really, you want to donate to that – and you have about three weeks to do so.

Ensley F. Guffey and K. Dale Koontz are co-authors of Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad, and of the forthcoming A Dream Given Form: The Unofficial Guide to the Babylon 5 Universe (September 2017). You can find Dale online at her blog “Unfettered Brilliance“ and on Twitter as @KDaleKoontz. Ensley hangs out on Twitter as @EnsleyFGuffey.

Filed under: books, K. Dale Koontz, neil gaiman, The Ten Percent Tagged: American Gods, Charles Vess, comics, ensley f. guffey, Gillian Anderson, good omens, graveyard book, neil gaiman, neverwhere, norse mythology, smoke and mirrors, stardust, terry pratchett, The Ten Percent, theodore sturgeon

#BiffBamPop

1 note · View note

viralhottopics · 8 years

Text

34 Poets Of Color Summarize 2017 In Verse

If 2017 was a poem, what would you call it?

This was the question Tabia Yapp the founder ofBEOTIS, a boutique agency that represents leading writers, speakers and multidisciplinary artists of color posed to a group of contemporary poets she admired.

The open-ended question provided respondents with ample space to play. Some poets answered the prompt in two words, while others filled up pages, all while attempting to describe a time categorized by so much fear, anger, hope, action and love.

Were only two months into 2017. At times, it feels like the year has already stretched beyond its 12-month boundaries. Yet at the same time, 2017 still doesnt feel quite real. Just as Black History Month comes to a close, the following poets are helping us make sense of this uncertain moment in history,using language as a guide.

Behold, 34 poets of color summarize 2017 in verse*:

1.Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon is a nonbinary artist with a lot of feelings.

2.Camonghne Felix

SUBSCRIBE TO & FOLLOW CULTURE SHIFT

Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Learn more

Newsletter

1.11 M

635 K

471 K

Podcast

Add us

Camonghne Felix, M.A., is a poet, political strategist, media junkie and cultural worker. She received an M.A. in arts politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo and Poets House. The 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee is the author of the chapbook Yolk, and was recently listed by Black Youth Project as a Black Girl From the Future You Should Know.

3.Yosimar Reyes

Yosimar Reyes is an undocumented American poet and activist, who was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in East San Jose, California.

4. Ada Limn

Ada Limn is the author of four books of poetry including Bright Dead Things which was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry award, and named one of the top 10 books of the year by The New York Times.

5.Hieu Minh Nguyen

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the son of immigrants. He is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and Not Here (Coffee House Press, forthcoming in 2018).

6. Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar is a Kundiman Fellow and a member of the Dark Noise Collective. She is the author of the chapbook AFTER (YesYes books, 2015) and the co-creator and writer of the highly anticipated web series Brown Girls.

7. Clint Smith

Clint Smith is the author of Counting Descent (2016) and a doctoral candidate at Harvard University who has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and the National Science Foundation. A 2014 National Poetry Slam champion, his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, The Guardian, Boston Review, Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere.

8.Danez Smith

Danez Smith is the author of Dont Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017) and the award winning [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014). Danez is a 2017 NEA Fellow and member of the Dark Noise Collective.

9.Eboni Hogan

Eboni Hogan is a Brooklyn-based poet, playwright, actress and curriculum writer who has performed in over 65 U.S. cities, as well as internationally in Ghana, Germany and Austria. She is the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion and habitually bougie.

10.Paul Tran

Paul Tran placed Top 10 at the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam in 2015. They live in Brooklyn, where they serve as Poetry Editor at The Offing and Poet In Residence at Urban Word NYC.

11.Oompa

Oompa is a hood, black, queer slam poet, rapper and Beyonc aficionado from Boston seeking to make space where the world says there is none for her. She just released her debut album November 3rd in 2016 after making final stage with House Slam at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Georgia.

12.Joshua Aiken

Joshua Aiken won the 2016 Martin Starkie Prize for his poem Disappearing Act(s) while studying at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, and is an alumni of Washington University in St. Louis where he was a proud member of WU-SLam, a spoken word poetry community.

13.Janani Balasubramanian

Janani Balasubramanian is a writer of speculative fiction whose art and editorial work has been featured in The New Yorker, Guernica, Creative Time Reports, The New Inquiry and more. Theyve presented work at 160-plus stages across North America and Europe, including the Public Theater, MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Janani is currently working on Sleeper a dystopian trilogy about sleep, dreams and physics.

14. Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet, writer and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is a columnist at MTV News and a Callaloo Creative Writing Fellow. His first collection of poems, The Crown Aint Worth Much, was released by Button Poetry in 2016.

15.Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese-American writer and educator living in Washington, DC. Her debut collection of poetry, The January Children, is available from University of Nebraska Press.

16.Denice Frohman

Denice Frohman is an award-winning poet, writer, performer and educator. She is a 2014 CantoMundo Fellow, 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2013 Hispanic Choice Award winner, and performed at The White House in 2016.

17. Eve L. Ewing

Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of race and urban education at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, a poet and an essayist. Her debut colleciton of poems, Electric Arches, is forthcoming September 2017 via Haymarket Books.

18.Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo is a National Poetry Slam Champion with two collections of poetry, and The Poet X (HarperCollins, 2018) is her debut novel.

19.Jacqui Germain

Jacqui Germain is a poet and freelance writer based in St. Louis, with poems published in Muzzle Magazine and The Offing, and essays published in The New Inquiry and The Establishment. Shes the author of the chapbook, When the Ghosts Come Ashore, published through Button Poetry/Exploding Pinecone Press, and is still trying to figure out her own public and private resistance.

20.Jayson P. Smith

Jayson P. Smith is a Brooklyn-based writer, curator, performance artist and current Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow with The Poetry Project.

21.Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times 2016 Top 10 Critics Pick and winner of the 2016 Whiting Award.

22.Nate Marshall

Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author of Wild Hundreds and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop.

23.Cameron Awkward-Rich

Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016) and the chapbook Transit (Button Poetry, 2015). A Cave Canem fellow and poetry editor for Muzzle Magazine, his poems have appeared/are forthcoming in Narrative, The Baffler, Indiana Review and elsewhere

24. Ariana Brown

Ariana Brown is an Afromexicana poet from San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in African diaspora studies and Mexican-American studies. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion, and is currently working on her first manuscript.

25. Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes is the author of City of Bones: A Testament (TriQuarterly, 2017).Dawes notes that his title is for an era that spans 20082020.

26.Nabila Lovelace

Nabila Lovelace is a first-generation Queens native; her people hail from Trinidad and Nigeria. Sons of Achilles, her debut book of poems, is forthcoming from YesYes Books.

27.Aja Monet

The revolution will be livestreamed on facebook and instagrammed by your favorite thot, triggered on twitter, so uber cool not to uber, the only bloodshed will be freebleeding or my pussy is borderless, you mean to tell me they dont have starbucks on this march? i wish a mothafucka would, dear 1968, you aint aged one bit, nothin new under the sun, the more things change the more they stay the same, this revolving door, my president is a puppet, white house of horrors, when the pedophile priests bless america, or the crooked babalao, voodoo these divided states, birth of no nation, if you know whats good for you, kill capitalism, get free or die tryin, rosie the riveter ushers in new law and order, black magic will not be photoshopped, liberate these psychic streets.

Aja Monet is a Caribbean-American blues poet.

28.Porsha Olayiwola

: porsha o is joy in dystopia : ready to die, again : how to out breathe the ghost inhaling all around you : watch me dance on the grave of everything that tried to kill me : why is the blood so shiny so pretty splattered : the black dyke avoids being devoured, again : how attendance at therapy appointments and guided meditations heal humans : how i got whole : we do not run, here : here, i am the riot : watch me burn this place to ash

Porsha Olayiwola is the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, the 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion, and the co-founder of House Slam. She identifies as a black, lesbian poet, a hip-hop feminist, an educator and a organizer.

29. Patricia Smith

Beowulf Sheehan

You, so blatantly golden, the helm of every keening ship, so our plummet and our mirrors, so the steel-eye and bellow, you, ass perpetually clenched, sinking in your suit jacket, so our blunder and kismet, the tips of your dwarfish fingers bled raw with currency, you, relentlessly training your teeth, spit-glued crown defying every wind, you are the back-bended sniffler lost in the shadowed end of the school yard, you, legless savior, nailed to the same cross you carry.

Patricia Smith is a poet, teacher, performance artist and author. Smith is a professor at the College of Staten Island and in the Sierra Nevada College MFA program, recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, a National Book Award finalist and the author of eight critically acknowledged volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Incendiary Art.

30.Julian Randall

By this I mean less sexually (though if thats your thing by all means get down with yourself) than there is nothing better suited to me to talk about survival than the idea of Morning. Ive thought nearly every day of this new year about a casually brilliant quote from Natalie Diaz What happens after the unimaginable? The morning after, and the one after that. 2016 was almost across the board a year in which we faced so many events that we could only describe as being the unimaginable; I cite that every single time somebody mentions Prince dying I feel it all over again as if for the first time because my brain starkly refuses to hold onto the fact that hes gone.

And yet, in the face of so many apocalypses (here I mean the tertiary definition of apocalypse, brought to my attention by the genius Junot Diaz, meaning revelation because I will not give this year or any other the dignity of being my presumed end) we are still here. Wounded, but here. Oppressed, but here. Grieving, but here. Fighting, and aint one of the criteria for fighting to be here, present, alive? And how truly awe worthy, fight worthy is that? Alive, after all this time. Thats as constant as dawn, whether the clouds ensnare the senses or not somewhere behind all that, the sun, daybreak. That to me is the Morning After it becomes morning in America.

As unimaginable tragedy and hurt settles into reality that we (here I am speaking specifically to marginalized folks, especially my own communities as a Queer Black & Afro-Dominican person) are in so many ways also the unimaginable. How many generations of survival and endurance and an irreducible desire to live have brought us this far? Does that not make us something unimaginable? Does that not give us the power to bring a morning too?

Julian Randall is a living queer black poet from Chicago pursuing his MFA at Ole Miss. He can be followed on Instagram and Twitter @JulianthePoet.

31. Aziza Barnes

retitiling 2017 A logic: cop is to take & pig is a cop & Jimmy is a Johnson & Johnson is a dick & Dick is a Richard & Chip is a Frank & Frank is honest & Also a suggestion & Dick is a suggestion & Short for a fuller name & Coarse is a word for hair & Hair is dead & growing & Dead is brown often on plants & Green is money unless its young & Guap is bread is cheese is where we put pesticides & A pest is a hairy pussy & pussy Is a pet or a chore or a slave & A slave is brown so is dead so is hair so is also growing & Dick or Short for the fuller name is a weapon or An honest suggestion or Something to cop or Something to pig & pig is often an element of a verb to pig often it is a direction out which is to eat a lot of unnecessarily & a jimmy is also a way to loosen what been locked also a verb to jimmy which is also something to cop but short for the name theft which is to eat too much & coarse Is the opposite of fine which is Handsome & Too thin for light & Unable to braid & also just Okay & okay is how Andrew Jackson signed his checks which is also how Richard Blaine signed his checks in Casablanca OKAY which is a movie about a Dick that Jimmyd a fine slave or a Richard that Johnsond a nation for some young or a man that stole a woman for $10,000 francs & called it a name that didnt relate or a shared name with a commander to genocide of Native Americans & of which I am one & if OKAY wasnt OKAYD there would be more of me & dick had a black piano player Or dick had a suggestion for a dead music which is Latin song & Rome is where Latin was & the aqueduct Was a system of moving dirt from water from the people or a system of a pest to eat versus a pest to drown which is what happened to many coarse bodies or women bodies or slave bodies in certain lakes in the Americas where Richard Blane is from & saved by throwing a fine green on a plane for his coarse green love or his hair grown dead or his OKAY gone OKAY or his unable to braid suggestion of a cop which is also a pig which can be a pet if it behaves well.

Aziza Barnes is blk and alive. Winner of the 2015 Pamet River Prize, Azizas first full length collection i be but i aint is from YesYes Books 2016. They are a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival and co-host of the podcast The Poetry Gods.

32.Dominique Christina

The year is no poem. It wont be called anything With light inside it. It snatches milk from The mouths of infants A lion devouring shrines and sunlight.

2017 is a weapon.

A low groan in the dark, A woman in the basement With a wire hangar and a baby No bigger than a mustard seed That she will meet as an ooze in her palms 2017 is the lynch mob discography: Girl bodies Gay bodies Trans bodies Black bodies Poor bodies Nobodies All strung up like Mardi Gras beads on Main Street The stench doesnt stop the parade

Thats America.

2017 is a funeral procession. A lunatics marching orders Conversion therapy Celebrity Apprentice on A terrible loop,

2017 is no poem.

Its the bastard child of Interred bones in the Tallahatchie River A severed spine in Baltimore A boys brain on the street in Ferguson The last breath of a man in New York Traffic stops that crescendoed to murder 2017 is a dustbin Stacked with protest signs and court orders The lickety split shudder Of a nation that ran into its ghosts And only the women were Acquainted with being haunted. Empty cupboard soliloquy queens Snatching their children From public schools and Handing them switchblades

Mommy is sorry.

This is what the teacher wont show you.

Take it.

These bastards need mortality.

2017 is the state house glittered now in menstrual blood.

Girl children baying at the dawn limp moon Oak trees decorated with brassieres Nazis with their teeth knocked out A linguistic resistance With no room for words like alt right When white supremacy is story enough.

2017 is no poem.

Its a pipeline trying To breech an ocean, A woman in a wheelchair At a protest rally, A tear gas canister on the steps of the Capitol.

2017 didnt bring my God with it.

Just hexes and hurricane winds A democracy doomed by The wrong weather wreckage of Rich men and their crucifixion fetish We gon all carry a cross You better believe it Let whatever happens be biblical then. Let the locusts come if they must.

America is a murdered woman Ghosting the world With her cracked levees, Her burned out mosque, Her shot up church, Her impossible promise Her unmarked graves, And I am dumb with calling her name. Despite the yelps of history, My wobbly faith splits heaven wide open Reimagines God as mammy, Starch white apron and a shotgun, Babies suckling at her unremarkable breasts Pushing scripture out from the rubble Saying the battle is finally over and me, War-walloped and heaving, Rummaging through debris looking for Something that glitters…

Oh America, (If that is your real name) Take these bones and perform One last miracle Take these hands and give me Back my mouth Take this mouth and give me back my feet Take these feet and give me back my courage Dazzle this uncaptured girl that I might Live long enough to tell my grandchildren About the year I stopped beseeching God and In the trench grew my own temple. God of the in-between, God of the firing pin, God of the slaughtered lamb, God of a risen god, Unspell me, here.

I am singing you the hymn of my skirt. I am burning yellow dahlias on my One good altar not splintered by shrapnel Or singed with smoke… If there is any prayer left In this world let it be What is left of our hearts, Our coliseum hearts, And the stupid hope that Regulates the metronome Of our blood machinery. The orchestral thrumming, The insistent rumble, Of our broken, impossible hearts, The only evidence Ie ever had That mountains can be moved.

Dominique Christina is a mother, published author, licensed educator, two-time Women of the World Slam Champion, social agitator, intersectional feminist and cultural Jedi. She is sought after to teach and perform at colleges and universities nationally and internationally every year.

33.Jason Reynolds

IF 2017 WERE A POEM

id call it a flaming bag of shit left at the front door at the side door at the back door your door a gathering double-dutch bucking at flames the orange of them plucking at our faces like immature older brothers jarring us from sleep barring us from passage crackling like broken voice smelling of familiar kindling to some to me at my door cotton rope paper add flint for spark shoot shit no water no water this time this time id call it this time us all here like every time this prank the prank of all stupid white boy pranks gets pulled figuring between filthying our feet up or kicking our feet up and letting the whole damn house burn down id call it this time deciding to sacrifice name brands some chapped overworked epidermis and an epidemic of supple unbothered soles eager to know stomp for once id call it this time were prepared to explain the haunting fecal scent to the houseguests wed promised to host over water id call it they are coming from far they will need a place to stay

Jason Reynolds is The New York Times bestselling author of several novels for young people, including Ghostand All-American Boys, which he co-authored with Brendan Kiely. His new novel in verse, Long Way Down, hits stores this fall.

34.Mahogany L. Browne

When they turn bodegas into boutique grocery stores

When they bounce cops up the block

Like this hipster protection program wont turn back

Lefrak into Harlem turn back Harlem into Chirac

turn back BedStuy into Brownsville turn Brownsville back

Into the Bronx back into Gaza back…

You will taste this strange and bitter American history

Where the Mom and Pop work more hours than the Governor

Where the pesticides overflow our sewer systems

Float our food deserts into neighborhoods

One way in

One way out

Tell me this gentrification be for my own good

Tell me this housing project keep us warfare ready

Tell me Biggie died for our sins

& Ill show you a Brooklyn stoop with a babies name etched in chalk

A hashtag ghost gone already

A price tag on his sisters face

Shes been missing since Sunday

Where choppa lights paint concrete a trail of breadcrumbs

A haunting finding its way back to our homes

The Electoral College is

a lullaby designed to put us

back to sleep.

The ocean is weeping a righteous rage, she got questions for the living:

& what about the sweetheart who would grow to love Tamir Rice? Mike Brown? Korryn Gaines? Akia Gurley?

What about they mamas singing their name before each breakfast?

Or the church praying for their redemption bibles raised in the air?

What about their (almost) children? How about they Daddys smile?

What about they name make them so easy to turn to ash?

How we ghosting black boys for the toys we gift them?

On a Monday

A white body told my black body

It aint earned no apology for the bloodshed

For the nights when my skin grow so cold

I know I must be inches from death

For each death hand delivered to me,

this: silence this: certain dismissal this: post racial reality show this: confederate hug

& dont it bloom like a mushroom sky?

What about the blues? Why it cry like hail? Why it hell like America so so long

Yo: America

Whatchu know about noose ready

Whatchu know about chalk lines & double barrels

Whatchu know about a murder weapon

Or a loose cigarette

Or a baby sleeping on a couch

Whatchu you know about the flag

The confederate fathers

The truck that followed me down a lonely road in Georgia

The names that I rolled off my tongue in prayer?

Saint Sojourner

Saint Harriet

Saint Rekia

Saint Sandra

Bring me home

Or leave me steady

Gun aimed and cocked ready

Con artists turned 45th resident of the White House

While the 44th President is lifted off the grounds

by his shadow & his Black wife

She sideeye all day

She cheekbone slay

While the media aim and shot at presidential legacy

Until weed smoke & a concert make us remember BLK people aint never been human here

Aint we beautiful, those that survived the purging

Those that spill, body splay beautiful from a hateful song

This swing sweet sweet low spiritual aint neva been inclusive

Whatch know about larynx & baton

How you sing him crow in the key of Emmett Till

What fever fuss you awake?

Who else got copd anxiety?

Call it what it is: Post traumatic slave syndrome

Call it land tax until homeless

Call it abortion turned sterilization

Aint no lie like the one against our stillborn children

Aint no lie like the many that shaped our babies into mute cattle

Prison industrial complex reverberates in the tune of elementary

4th graders are the easiest targets

A Math Problem:

If 1 woman, got a 7 Mac 11

& 2 heaters for the beemer

How many Congress seats will NRA lose?

How many votes will it take for a sexual predator

to lift the White House off her feet?

I am practicing this aim

This tongue a shoestring strafe

My tongue say:

Melt the wires of Guantanamo

Yasin Bey coming home aint what we thought it would be

Aint no solace in Mecca

Even Spike Lee left Brooklyn

Here, a slumlord will leave my front steps

Full of rat piss &AirBnB my neighbors apartment

for half my take home pay

Unhinge the city of Rikers

Bring back the reapers

Give them the loot & the stoop

Yea, they good at killin but so was Jefferson.

I mean Washington. I mean CIA. I mean Cointelpro.

I mean they mimic your Grace. I mean its a 2017, America.

A new new year &your face lift be botched.

Mahogany L. Browne is author of Redbone (nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Works) and co-editor of forthcoming anthology The Break Beat Poets: Black Girl Magic. She is an internationally touring poet and Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC, Program Director of BLM@Pratt, Poetry Program Director at the Nuyorican Poets Caf.

*All biographies were provided by Tabia Yapp and the participating poets.