Brooklyn Poets

on the Bridge is Chessy Normile’s GREAT EXODUS, GREAT WALL, GREAT PARTY!

Great exodus, great wall, great party

Unsupervised adults, busy boys and girls
have things to say about your figure, which
is the word men are most likely to use
when addressing a growing girl.

— Omotara James reads her feature poem “Autobiography of Thud”

Omotara James, "Autobiography of Thud" Poet of the Week, July 22–28, 2024. Full text of the poem & interview: brooklynpoets.org/community/poet/omotara-james

Featured mentors on the Bridge this week are Lauren Russell & Devin Kelly!

Your pockets jangle on the bus home with your private
collection. You strew your loves with abandon
across the kitchen counter.

—Our Omotara James

Omotara James — Brooklyn Poets Prospect Lefferts Gardens

on the Bridge is Sarah Kersey’s RESIDENCE TIME!

residence time Residence TimeI walked with Moses to the edge of the Gulf of Maine.He did not carry the air of salvation.His face had its own fault lines:Anger and age. I asked him if he remembered lookinginto his adoptive mother’s face for the first time.He shed a tear and raised his rod. I never believed someth...

Another day we’ll rummage through it and relive ourselves
in each other.

— Ae Hee Lee reads her feature poem “Self-Portrait as Mother”

Ae Hee Lee, "Self-Portrait as Mother" Poet of the Week, July 15–21, 2024. Full text of the poem & interview: brooklynpoets.org/community/poet/ae-hee-lee

Featured mentors on the Bridge this week are Margaret Ray & KB Brookins!

Then I’d watch her move
past what others barely left ajar, insist on living
as a breathless field of seeds with its mouth always open.

—Our Ae Hee Lee

Ae Hee Lee — Brooklyn Poets Featured for Friday Night Open

even
revolutionaries beat womxn
with the same fists
they jam into the sky.

— Ashunda Norris reads her feature poem “don’t be afraid of s*x appeal”

Ashunda Norris, "don't be afraid of s*x appeal" Poet of the Week, July 8–14, 2024. Full text of the poem & interview: brooklynpoets.org/community/poet/ashunda-norris

Our August Book Club selection is Omotara James' poetry collection, Song of My Softening! Join us for group discussions on August 8th and 15th and for an exclusive Q&A session with the author on August 18th. Check the link to learn more and register! bit.ly/bkp-bookclub

Early registration is now open for our next craft lab on August 11, "Real Talk: Discovering Your Speaker," led by poet Edgar Kunz! Members can save $40 and nonmembers $15 through July 21. Financial aid requests due July 28. Check the link to learn more!

Real Talk: Discovering Your Speaker — Brooklyn Poets August 11, 5-8pm (ET) with Edgar Kunz / online

on the Bridge is Luther Hughes’ TOUCHED!

touched

Featured mentors on the Bridge this week are Ariel Francisco & Erin L. McCoy!

It's the last day to register for these workshops with imogen xtian smith & alma valdez-garcia, Vanessa Jimenez Gabb and I.S. Jones! Learn more and register: https://brooklynpoets.org/workshops/all/

Last week to register for this five-week, in-person workshop w/ Gregory Crosby, we'll explore various ways that poets have wrestled with history: through interpretation, testimony & witness, and genealogy.

The Past is Never Past: Poetry & History — Brooklyn Poets with Gregory Crosby Thursdays, 6:30-9:30pm ET July 18–August 15 Register by: July 14th

Last week to register for this five-week, online workshop w/ Ashunda Norris, we'll identify how filmmakers use poetic images to elicit emotional kinship and how poets use the moving image for innovation.

Poetry & Cinema — Brooklyn Poets with Ashunda Norris Wednesdays, 6:30-9:30pm ET July 17–August 14 Register by: July 14th

Last week to register for this five-week, online workshop w/ dawn lonsinger, we'll throw ourselves into the woods and learn how inherited and collective narratives from fables, fairy tales and parables shape our identity and lives.

Fable, Fairytale and Parable in Poetry — Brooklyn Poets with dawn lonsinger Sundays, 10:30am-1:30pm ET July 21–August 18 Register by: July 14th

Last week to register for this five-week, online workshop w/ grace (ge) gilbert, we'll engage with poets who use text and image in interesting ways, from Victoria Chang's use of personal artifacts to Renee Gladman's study of the line as architecture.

Beyond Legibility: The Image:Text Poem — Brooklyn Poets with grace (ge) gilbert Sundays, 5:30-8:30pm ET July 21–August 18 Register by: July 14th

I don’t want to be ruthless
I want to be sane

—Our Ashunda Norris

Ashunda Norris — Brooklyn Poets Brooklyn Poets Faculty

A poem can never be written in a vacuum—always, in ways both overt and subliminal, the art we make reverberates with the voices of our communities, our loved ones and the political and sociocultural structures that scaffold our daily lives. In this five-week, in-person workshop led by instructors imogen xtian smith & alma valdez-garcia, students will have the opportunity to critically engage with this multiplicity, reading and generating work that foregrounds survival writing as a mechanism of community-building and revolutionary action. Swipe to read passages from imogen and alma's collaborative poem "wake up y'all" originally published by the Poetry Project and from imogen's poem "deep ecology" from their collection stemmy things. https://brooklynpoets.org/workshop/p/muckmaking-survival-writing-communion

Poem selection & description by ✨

Last week to register for this five-week, online workshop w/ Seth Leeper, we'll engage in the liberatory practice of pushing against rules: whether they be academic, social or personal.

The Rules We Break — Brooklyn Poets with Seth Leeper Thursdays, 6:30-9:30pm ET July 11–August 8 Register by: July 7th

Last week to register for this five-week, online workshop w/ Vanessa Jimenez Gabb, we'll meditate on the concept of the future self, the version of yourself and your poems that you know can be.

Poetry and the Future Self — Brooklyn Poets with Vanessa Jimenez Gabb Sundays, 10:30am-1:30pm ET July 14–August 11 Register by: July 7th

Last week to register for this five-week, in-person workshop w/ imogen xtian smith and alma valdez-garcia will focus on survival writing as a form of community building and on revolutionary articulations against the systems of empire in which we live.

Muckmaking: Survival Writing & Communion — Brooklyn Poets with imogen xtian smith & alma valdez-garcia Sundays, 2-5pm ET July 14–August 11 Register by: July 9th

Filmmakers build worlds, construct images, open portals and connect us in ways we rarely think are possible. How does the cinematic image influence our understandings of each other? In what ways can poets use film to write the unexpected? Learn how in this five-week, online workshop w/ Ashunda Norris and swipe to read her poem “My Therapist Says I'm Mourning the Loss of An Undead Sister”. In this poem, visceral images of a church fire and the gates of hell surround the delicate discussion of how a family recovers from trauma. The almost frantic pace of the poem is offset by the care Norris embeds into the depiction of her family’s aching grief, giving sad the space “it actually deserves”. Learn more and register at https://brooklynpoets.org/workshop/p/poetry-cinema/

Poem selection & description by ✨ Poem from Dreginald, issue 18, fall 2019.

From anniversaries to graduations to weddings, the hallmark moments of our lives are punctuated by music. If music, then, is a form of memory on its own, how can we carry this into our work? Learn how in this five-week, online workshop w/ I.S. Jones and swipe to read their poem “Esperanza” from Spells of My Name which beautifully evokes the power of language as a form of understanding ancestry. Jones weaves through her past to find a power within the memory of wild women. Learn more and register: https://brooklynpoets.org/workshop/p/poetry-music-and-memory

The mirror of his beauty is the mirror of his lies. The mirror of his truth and his want.

— Leah Umansky reads her feature poem “Tyrant as Self Reflection”

Leah Umansky, "Tyrant as Self Reflection" Poet of the Week, July 1–7, 2024. Full text of the poem & interview: brooklynpoets.org/community/poet/leah-umansky

on the Bridge is Jon Sands’ It's Not Magic!

It's Not Magic “I shall resist hyperbole. I shall abstain (barely) (maybe) from the urge to bellow from the rafters. I will not babble ceaselessly about how this book will fervently rollick an often fickle poetic oeuvre, how it will soon be apparent (hallelujah) (finally) that one Jon Sands is the raconteur we.....

Featured mentors on the Bridge this week are Brionne Janae & Andrew Kozma!

Interested in visual art and poetry? In this five-week, online workshop w/ grace (ge) gilbert, we'll engage with poets who use text and image in interesting ways, from Victoria Chang's use of personal artifacts to Renee Gladman's study of the line as architecture.

Beyond Legibility: The Image:Text Poem — Brooklyn Poets with grace (ge) gilbert Sundays, 5:30-8:30pm ET July 21–August 18 Register by: July 14th

When the tyrant splits, he doesn’t split for you, he splits to better himself.

—Our Leah Umansky

Leah Umansky — Brooklyn Poets Cobble Hill (now Upper West Side)