Friday Links: The Poems You Think About After A Night Out Edition

“This is about taking in the sea, remembering estuaries, imbibing ocean. And not drowning.” – Jameela F. Dallis, “See Me Now”

Hey, it’s NBA Playoffs time! I love the first round, even if I’m not optimistic that this particular one will be too exciting. There’s such a good mix of elite teams (OKC, San Antonio, Denver, Boston, New York, Detroit this year) and weird, exciting/interesting teams (Charlotte, Houston, Portland, both LA teams), and everything feels a little less settled. Even if there are probably six realistic teams for the Final Four, the first round is where fun stuff happens.

Oh and hey, we have a new Lazy & Entitled Podcast up! I interviewed Jameela F. Dallis and had such a great time doing it. Brendan and I also talk about 21st century conveniences we could do without. All that and more, plus a reading from Studs Terkel, of course. Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

Three books—that’s right, after saying “no more than two books a week” during poetry month, I have, for the second time, read three books. Whatever man, I’ve been writing and more crucially editing poems, too. Enough about me. These books were incredible. Different in subject matter, but all sorta felt like they went together. Maybe I’m just overdosing on poetry. Worse problems to have. I’m talking, of course, about Sipèstisyon by Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Encounters For The Living And The Dead by Jameela F. Dallis, and driver seat echo by Giovanna Lomanto.

Sipèstisyon by Mckendy Fils-Aimé: maybe the most IYKYK way of complimenting this book is: I can see why Mckendy and Diannely Antigua are pressmates. If you’re looking for a collection of elegiac, lyrical, thoughtful, trauma-informed, and tender poems that are in love with language? Look to YesYes Books, it seems. Massive TW for physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a parent. Even with the difficult subject ƒmatter, though, there is plenty of music image metaphor. The poems here sing in a soft yet assertive melody. 

What sticks with me the most is how physical violence is compared to writing and language. Violence writes scars, speaks in the language of bruises. It’s incredibly effective. Within the book, writing poetry becomes a way to write something that doesn’t hurt, a way to write through the pain. But even if you erase pencil markings, there’s a little graphite still left on the page, right?

Encounters For The Living And The Dead by Jameela F. Dallis: one of the highest compliments I can pay a book of poetry is to say that it feels like the poet fucking LIVES—a tonal way to express a zeal for life that was probably best said by Diannely Antigua on The Line Break. Other books in this category include Toska by Alina Pleskova and frank: sonnets by Dianne Seuss. The title instructs us that we will be encountering the living and the dead, and yes, there is melancholy, there is grief and loss here. The dead also teach, the dead inform. More than all of that, though: there are oysters. There are trips to Paris and Marrakesh. There’s a real sense of being in touch with those that came before you, on a tangible, sensual level. There’s adventurousness, a Bourdain-like curiosity and determination to derive meaning from sensuous living. That’s the kind of poetry I want to read, the kind of poetry I want to write. Make beautiful the experience of living, make beautiful the experience of knowing your dead.

driver seat echo by Giovanna Lomanto: listen, I expected this book to be good. Before reading, I was unfamiliar with Giovanna’s work, but had hung out with her for a good chunk of AWP 2025. She was working the Game Over Books table, and Bob was there all the time because his book had just come out. Giovanna is cool as hell while also giving off Pure Artist Energy, her Instagram is full of good photos and her blog is thoughtful. So I expected good when I cracked this book open, but I did not quite expect this. These poems are dense while also being smooth and lyrical. Maybe full is a better word than dense. There’s music on every line, there’s wonder and longing and rage and sadness and love. The collection feels a little like that album you reserve for the train ride home at night, you know, when it’s one a.m. and you can’t afford a Lyft so you gotta spend 80 minutes taking the blue line all the way downtown and then the red line all the way back north. There’s a certain comfort that comes from looking out at Lake Michigan and not being able to tell what’s water and what’s night sky. Like you’re not quite right, in your life, but you’re definitely not wrong, either. This book is that, for me.

LINKS!

Something to listen to while you browse? Giovanna’s book includes a wonderful poem, “nobody likes you when you’re 23.” It’s a sentiment that’s both true and well-deserved, I was awful when I was 23. I want to use this as a reason to plug Some Girls Try Too Hard, a compilation of trans women covering Enema Of The State in its entirety. It rules, but I can’t find Lucia Helena’s “What’s My Age Again” cover on YouTube. So here’s Alex Melton reimagining Vanessa Carlton as Blink 182. Man, it’s been forever since Bob and I argued about Vanessa Carlton vs. Michelle Branch.

• This week in ICE: Random ICE raids have slowed for now, but this popular neighborhood chef still isn’t cooking outside by Mike Sula in Chicago Reader, Protesters mock ICE, Broadview police at dildo day of action outside detention center by Dominic Guanzon and Border Patrol agents ignored orders to end car chase before gassing Chicago neighborhood by Steve Held in unraveled, Protesters Wield Sex Toys Outside ICE Facility In Broadview For ‘Operation Dildo Blitz’ by Talia Sprague and Immigrants ‘Wasting Away’ At For-Profit Michigan Detention Center Months After ICE Arrests by Francia Garcia Hernandez in Block Club, and ICE agent charged with two felonies for allegedly pointing gun at motorists during surge, subhed: Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said a nationwide warrant has been issued in the first criminal charges against an ICE agent for on-duty actions during the surge. by Jeff Day in Minnesota Star Tribune.
• Billionaire fortunes have reached all-time highs under Trump. So has the movement to tax them by Lex McMenamin in The Guardian
• Almost Half of US Data Centers That Were Supposed to Open This Year Slated to Be Canceled or Delayed and College Students Losing Ability to Participate in Class Discussions Since They Offloaded Their Thinking to AI, both by Joe Wilkins in Futurism
• “Even After You’re Gone” by K.C. Mead-Brewer in The Bulb Region
• In the spirit of the NBA Playoffs starting, I really enjoyed this interview with retired WNBAer Carolyn Swords from Nicholas Russell in Defector. They touch on playing overseas ball and collective bargaining, as well as how far the W has come since 1996 (Carolyn, like me, was around age eight and just discovering a love of basketball—v cool to see that it became a career for her from that initial spark). A pull quote, because Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “I also really loved being part of the Players Association. I was a player rep for many years and then, in my final years, was part of the executive committee that helped to negotiate the 2020 CBA…It’s hard because you’re trying to make change, but hard in a good way, and I feel like trying to solve those problems and thinking about the business in the league and making sure that my teammates and other players felt heard helped me to feel ready to retire. My career was possible because of the players and women who came before me.“

What’re you still doing here? Hey, did the title of Mckendy’s book click yet?

If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Take cues from all three poets this week and go live. Live in spite of whomever doesn’t want you to thrive, live because life can be good when you make it. Hey, sometimes uncontrollable things happen. I’ve been dealing with a few in my personal life this year. Go live, though. Go outside. Read a book. Listen to music that an algorithm didn’t recommend to you. And when you’re at work, don’t let the worst customers grind you down.

Sorry you got an email,

Chris