BONUS SECOND INTRO NOTICE: I am currently at AWP! Please say hello if you would like, I would be stoked to talk to you. I am not scheduled to do anything, so if you have any open reading slots, holler. I\u2019m not really on Twitter but I check DMs<\/a> there, same with Discord (I\u2019m @chriscorlew). Hope to see you in KC!<\/em><\/p> Bonus second epigraphs: \u201cWe would go to a tavern and just start reciting our poetry.\u201d Gwendolyn Brooks <\/p> \u201cI\u2019m trying to create new forms\u2026I\u2019m trying to write the kind of poem that could be presented in a tavern atmosphere\u2014on a street corner.\u201d – Gwendolyn Brooks<\/p> \u201cIn fact, a lot of suburban white women hate \u2018The Lovers Of The Poor<\/a>\u2019 to this day.\u201d – Gwendolyn Brooks<\/p> \u201cI don\u2019t want people running around saying Gwen Brooks\u2019s work is intellectual.\u201d – Gwendolyn Brooks <\/p> Yeah. She\u2019s real cool. <\/p> What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong>Two books I\u2019ve had my eye on for a while. One a re-read, one a first-read of a reprint. I didn\u2019t get exactly what I expected (I don\u2019t know exactly what I expected) out of either, but thoroughly enjoyed both. Both oddly inviting reads\u2014how much I\u2019d recommend these to non-writers, I can\u2019t say, but if you\u2019re into what these books are doing, there\u2019s a comfort to them. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Black Women Writers At Work<\/em> edited by Claudia Tate and Sleeping With The Dictionary<\/em> by Harryette Mullen.<\/p> Black Women Writers At Work<\/strong><\/em> edited by Claudia Tate: <\/strong>all of these writers are basically my grandparents\u2019 age, which was odd to think about. I\u2019ve talked here and elsewhere before about being interested in domestic writing, seeing as my life swirls around pots, pans, and school pickup lines. What I found was less \u201cwhite men write this, Black women write that\u201d (which only a truly knuckle-dragging mouth-breather would expect) and more \u201coh wow, I totally relate to this aspect of the writing life\u201d or \u201coh wow, I certainly hope that aspect of the writing life doesn\u2019t happen to me!\u201d One thing I never felt was alienated because someone was quoting too much theory or saying something esoteric about Andrew Marvell or whomever or totally losing the plot in some other intellectual dick-measuring contest. Andrew Marvell\u2019s maybe the worst poet in the history of the English language. Less about him and the more said about 1) finding time to write after doing the dishes 2) finding time to write and your teenage kid is old enough to leave you to it or 3) finding time to write after quietly seething because you men colleagues make double the salary. <\/p> Two funny things: 1) the interviews I liked best were by writers whose work I was pretty familiar with: Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez. Everyone else, who I\u2019m either sort of familiar with or not at all familiar with, was still a good interview, but didn\u2019t hit quite as hard. Is that familiarity with the work, or that those do writers do things I also want to do? 2) midway through the interview, I realized Beloved<\/em> did not exist in the world of this book.<\/p> Sleeping With the Dictionary<\/strong><\/em> by Harryette Mullen: <\/strong>this is from 2002, I first read it in 2004. It\u2019s a great book poetry that I like to keep around to remind me of what the medium can do. This book is better than homework or vegetables\u2014these poems sing and dance. These poems turn language until you hear a funny noise and wonder if language broke and you won\u2019t be getting your security deposit back. They are not only<\/em> experimental language game poems, though, there is still a Black woman in her 40s writing these poems. As such, you get some (endearingly) corny jokes, some cringe rhymes, some stuff that worked better in 2002\u2014but any poem that didn\u2019t quite play my bones like xylophones, I kinda wondered if I\u2019d feel totally differently having heard that poem out loud. <\/p> The final word on this book is that it proves language games and experimental sound-making can<\/em> exist right alongside poems that are personal or poems that address politics. You never have to be just<\/em> a language poet doing n+7 on otherwise normie narratives, and you never have to be just<\/em> an issues poet who does Very Serious Work. You just have to love words enough that you wanna threesome Roget\u2019s and the AHD. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? You might be wondering why I left Wes Montgomery off of Wednesday\u2019s list<\/a>. Wes is great, don\u2019t get me wrong. Just 1) slightly obvious 2) he had some stinkers\u2014like inventing and popularizing smooth jazz. I get dude was broke. But some sins. Anyway, Smokin\u2019 At The Half Note<\/em> is real good. <\/p>![\"Black](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/d57c64fa-5234-49fd-9f4c-c858a1be675e.heic\")
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