Robin Gow, Jessica Nguyen, Danny McLaren, and Uma Menon

by | Apr 5, 2019 | Activism, disability, Feminism, Identity, LGBTQIA+, National Poetry Month, NPM 2019, Poetry

Editors' Choice Poems

Robin Gow, Jessica Nguyen, Danny McLaren, and Uma Menon

We are delighted to present this week’s selections from the Brain Mill Press Poetry Month Contest, Break Poetry Open, by talented poets Robin Gow, Jessica Nguyen, Danny McLaren, and Uma Menon.

We hope you’ll enjoy these editors’ picks as much as we did.

i had a dream they took out my uterus & handed it to me.

Robin Gow

my uterus was an ornate vase
& i asked, “what am i supposed
to do with this?”
the doctor shrugged
he was in a suite & tie &
had lavender gloves
he suggested i use it to collect something.
i stuck my hand in deep to see
if there was already anything in there,
found a ring i lost maybe four years ago
& i wondered how it got there.
silver claddagh waiting
scraping up against the glass
lining of the vase.
it had something to do with hope,
i think a uterus does even if you
take it out
& discover it’s
a shoe box or an urn or a vase.
i tried other items, starting
with buttons, snipping them off
all my clothes so that i would
have more. clear buttons, black buttons,
brown buttons, red buttons, all of them
inside the vase, i thought they might
transform, i thought that might
be the point of the strange object
but nothing happened. i slept
holding the vase & imagining
what it was like inside me
what kind of objects it hungered for.
i talked it, i told the vase that
i was sorry this was how
everything had to happen.
i bought flowers after flowers
to let sprout from the vase’s mouth:
lilies, carnations, roses
& i’d keep asking
the uterus, “are you happy?”
but the vase wouldn’t respond.
emptying out the greenish stem-water
left over from the flowers
i stuck my hand in again
only this time i felt an ache
in my chest as i did, a kind of
phantom connection, a hand under skin.
i wept, it was something about hope
for something; a hand searching
under skin for lost objects,
the ring like a kind of opening
for beetles or other insects
to crawl through. i was scared
it might always be like this
if i kept the thing around.
i had to break it.
no, not in the driveway or the street,
a push from the counter in the kitchen
where all glasses & plates
will eventually shatter.
the pieces on the floor like
teeth of an unknown monster.
i apologized to the uterus
as i cleaned up its pieces.
i took a bowl from the cupboard
& began filling it with buttons
out of habit or maybe
some kind of hope. from the buttons
grew the stems of flowers,
only the stems.

About Robin Gow

Robin Gow’s poetry has recently been published in POETRY, The Gateway Review, and tilde. He is a graduate student at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets, Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages and interns for Porkbelly Press. He is an out and proud bisexual transgender man passionate about LGBT issues. He loves poetry that lilts in and out of reality, and his queerness is also the central axis of his work.

National Poetry Month

perks of a half-deaf wallflower

jessica nguyen

one.
it’s so much easier to sleep
lying in bed,
on my “good ear”
– whether it’s thunderstorms or my partner’s snoring,
I am able to slip past silently through the night
no baby can wake this baby up.
everyone envies my mornings
since they see no traces of dark circles
under my eyes
they’d ask,
“what’s your secret?”
who knew that my disability could be a celebrity-level beauty hack?

two.
the drill fire alarm comes in-oh wait, that’s not a perk.

two.
I can pretend to not hear you
and use my deafness as a legitimate excuse.
–
this especially works when I am not particularly fond of you.
this also works when I am not paying attention to something that I should’ve been paying attention to
“oh, sorry. what’s that? I couldn’t quite hear you the first time. can you repeat what you said? thanks.”
(smirks)
I swear it’s the truth sometimes.
.
three.
during trials and interviews,
“we can’t hire you because you-“ oops, that’s not a perk either.
.
three.
I got extra time on my ACT tests.
didn’t think that having my time limit doubled would help me on this kind of standardized testing, since only one of the four of the subjects required listening to begin with…
but I did get a small private room to myself with no pencil scratching and people breathing
.
four.
I got the same ACT score as my last one.
and I wasn’t even given the extra time last- wow, I need to stop. what is the definition of self-actualization again?
.
four.
I am everybody’s right hand person. the ones who’ve passed my friendship test re the ones who remembered to walk on my left. you can tell who the strangers are – they are the ones who I dance tango with as I quickly sashay to get to their right side.
.
five.
walking into every classroom
I wore an fm unit like a prop, which consisted of a hearing aid for me and a microphone for the teacher to speak into, which means having to blow my cover as I approach

now, I could expect the spotlight to be on me – yes, the star actor who deserved an oscar for passing as a full hearing person, coming up on stage to deliver her speech:
“I’d like to thank lip-reading and body language – I wouldn’t have been able to get to where I am today without them.”

all confused eyes would be on me,
sometimes awkward silence,
but mostly attention
to the quiet girl sitting in the front
because isn’t what being half-deaf means?
getting all the special attention?

six.
I can find my teachers easily when I need them. it’s great because if the teacher rushes out of the classroom, I always know where they go.

one time, the bell rang and it was the quickest I’ve seen a teacher leaving the room (I can understand his urge, though)
the problem was that he was wearing my microphone so I had to chase him down.
and of course, I thought it’d be cool to spy on what he was doing through my hearing aid. so, I did.

and what I first heard seconds in
was the sound of of a stream,
which lasted for…. a while.
then, a toilet flushing.

About Jessica Nguyen/Nguyễn Thị Mai Nhi

Jessica Nguyen/Nguyễn Thị Mai Nhi is a world traveler, activist, and writer. Though having lived in the U.S. for most of her life, she hops from one country to the next in hopes of discovering pieces of home to fill her Asian American soul. Known to be a soft-spoken person in the real world, she often channels her feelings through her writing as she finds written words to be just as powerful as when they’re spoken. Jessica plans to publish her own chapbook, “softly, I speak” in the near future. To learn more about her current projects, please visit her website at byjessicanguyen.com or follow her @byjessicanguyen on social media.​

National Poetry Month

Spark Joy

Danny McLaren

 

Do you ever wonder if your gender sparks joy?
If it fits you like a glove, if you love the way the words sound in your mouth or leave your lips,
How it feels to say ‘they’ with your own tongue
And know better than anyone else how to say your own name?

Does your gender excite you?
Does it hum in your veins, electric, ignited,
Keep you up at night, tossing from panicked to delighted, thinking
what if I’m a boy?
or what if I’m nothing at all?

But ‘nothing’ seems scary.
My gender isn’t scary.
Sure, it’s loud, and it’s big,
It takes up too many seats on the bus, makes the up-tight man on the left of me scoot over one.

But it’s dynamic, and powerful, and strong.
It repels close-minded like a magnet,
And pulls kind and ‘knowledgeable about feminist theory’ my way.

It’s ‘too many beers on a Saturday night’ euphoric,
It spills across my clothes when I’m not careful,
Or, on some days, when I try really hard to make it seen.

My gender beats in my chest when I run,
or while I wrestle into my binder.
Constricting my chest with freedom, just to look a little more me.

My gender kisses me goodnight, and greets me with the sunrise,
And marks up my skin with ‘I love you.’

Do you ever wonder if your gender sparks joy?
If you feel ‘just right’ with the words you choose to use
To tell others who you are?
Maybe you should
Because it feels damn good.

About Danny McLaren

Danny is a queer and non-binary writer who uses they/them pronouns. They are an undergraduate student studying Gender Studies, and beginning to dabble in queer, anti-racist, and anti-colonial theory. They have an interest in exploring themes related to equity, resistance, and intersectionality in their work, and often write about their gender, sexuality, and mental health through these lenses. They can be found on twitter at @dannymclrn.​

National Poetry Month

shopping for a necklace

Uma Menon

 

About Uma Menon

Uma Menon is a fifteen-year-old student and writer from Winter Park, Florida. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Huffington Post, The Rumpus, and National Poetry Quarterly, Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature, and the Cincinnati Review, among others. Her first chapbook was published in 2019 (Zoetic Press); she also received the 2019 Lee Bennett Hopkins Award in Poetry.

National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month — Break Poetry Open

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like... the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

“Nine Months,” “Cryptic Crossword LV,” “Her / Him / Our / Their / Us / Them / They Body,” and “Jaws Was on TV on a Saturday Morning”

by | Apr 5, 2019 | childhood, faith and religion, Identity, LGBTQIA+, NPM 2019, Poetry, Racism

“Nine Months,” “Cryptic Crossword LV,” “Her / Him / Our / Their / Us / Them / They Body,” and “Jaws Was on TV on a Saturday Morning”

Editors' Choice Picks

We are delighted to present this week’s selections from the Brain Mill Press Poetry Month Contest, Break Poetry Open, by talented poets Raymond Luczak, Holly Painter, henry 7. reneau, jr., and Mercury Marvin Sunderland.

We hope you’ll enjoy these editors’ picks as much as we did.

Nine Months

Raymond Luczak

mom still wonders how i lost my hearing
she mentions having a miscarriage in april 65

& being surprised to find herself pregnant

again in june 65 dr santini said id be born in january 66
instead i arrived in november 65 fully formed

not a preemie i go home two days later

not long after my sister carole takes
to reading out loud from a book
she is learning how to read to me
as i am trapped in my crib
i have apparently cocked my ears

to her voice laboriously decoding words

then mom changes her story

she remembers having the miscarriage in march 65
it fell out of her while she sat on the toilet

at 16 i constantly wondered

if that was indeed possible

a body expelling her own fetus

a heatwave in july 66

i turn pink & hot but everybody is hot anyway

mom wonders maybe somethings seriously wrong

at the hospital i am found to have double pneumonia

& a high fever i look close to dying so a priest is called in
i survive my last rites of death but my hearing doesnt

then mom changes details again

she says she had a d&c done in february 65
when she felt her fetus wasnt growing

it wasnt even two centimeters long
no idea whether it was a boy or girl
i no longer am sure what to believe

after i come back from the hospital

carole reads to me again

this time i bob my head around

she doesnt realize ive lost most of my hearing
no one has either
she gets frustrated with me & gives up

by the time i turn 2 & a half

mom asks her doctor why i havent begun talking

he says maybe hes deaf

she comes home & tells dad to stand me up & turn me

so i can face the wall up in the tub since he was washing me
i don’t respond to my name

research indicates a twin in the womb could miscarry
leaving behind its other half

in the 60s technology hadnt existed to detect

such a tiny baby
thats why moms pregnant test results in june 65
had so surprised everyone

up & down oak street where i once roamed
the trees are mostly gone

but the shadow of my other half

still runs a mean yellow stripe
right through the road of my life
the mystery of never knowing him

Jareen Imam author photo

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 22 books, including Flannelwood (Red Hen Press) and Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels). He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His online presence includes: raymondluczak.com, facebook.com/raymondsbooks, and twitter.com/deafwoof.

Cryptic Crossword LV

Holly Painter

Jareen Imam author photo

Holly Painter lives with her wife and son in Vermont, where she teaches writing and literature at the University of Vermont. Her first full-length book of poetry, Excerpts from a Natural History, was published by Titus Books in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2015. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have also been published in literary journals and anthologies in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, and the UK.

Her/Him/Our/Their/Us/Them/They Body

henry 7. reneau, jr.

Jareen Imam author photo

henry 7. reneau, jr. writes words of conflagration to awaken the world ablaze, an inferno of free verse illuminated by his affinity for disobedience, like a chambered bullet that commits a felony every day, an immolation that blazes from his heart, phoenix-fluxed red & gold, exploding through change is gonna come to implement the fire next time. He is the author of the poetry collection, freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press) and the e-chapbook, physiography of the fittest (Kind of a Hurricane Press), now available from their respective publishers. Additionally, he has self-published a chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance, and his collection, The Book Of Blue(s) : Tryin’ To Make A Dollar Outta’ Fifteen Cents, was a finalist for the 2018 Digging Press Chapbook Series. His work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Jaws Was on TV on a Saturday Morning

Mercury Marvin Sunderland

 

Mercury Marvin Sunderland is a gay Greek/Roman Wiccan autistic transgender man who uses he/him pronouns. He’s from Seattle. He currently attends The Evergreen State College, and his dream is to become the most banned author in human history.

Mercury is a 2013, 2014, 2015 winner of ACT Theater’s Young Playwright’s Program, a 2015, 2016 selected playwright for ACT Theater’s 14:48 HS, a 2016 winner of the Jack Straw Young Writer’s Program, a 2016 selected participant for the Seattle Talent Show hosted by Rainier Beach High School, and was hired as a paid representative of Youth Speaks Seattle in 2016. In 2017 alone, he was selected for and won the 2017 Youth Speaks Seattle Grand Slam, and went off as one of the top five youth slam poets representing Seattle at Brave New Voices 2017, an international slam poetry tournament treated as America’s national tournament, and was selected to perform slam poetry alongside former Seattle mayor candidate Nikkita Oliver at the University of Washington. In 2018 his illustrations were selected for While Supplies Last, an art show hosted by Anthony White, a Cornish College of the Arts graduate. In 2019 he received his first literary journal acceptance from Fearsome Critters Literary Magazine Volume Two, his second from the February 2019 issue of Marathon Literary Review, his third and fourth from Across & Through Literary Magazine, and his fifth from The Dollhouse Literary Magazine.

National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like… the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

 

“Demons Are Not Fearless Black Boys with Imagination,” “Lake Girl,” and “Baby Island”

by | Apr 5, 2019 | childhood, Feminism, Identity, NPM 2019, Poetry, Racism, Representation

Editors' Choice Poems

We are delighted to present this week’s selections from the Brain Mill Press Poetry Month Contest, Break Poetry Open, by talented poets Jeremiah Davis, Meg Eden, and Riley Welch.

We hope you’ll enjoy these editors’ picks as much as we did.

Demons Are Not Fearless Black Boys with Imagination

Jeremiah Davis

Shape a universe into a butterfly then release it. Bribe the
dark spaces in your heart to let you create an estuary of
flowers. Pray like an off key piano and celebrate the fifth
grade memory when it was so simple it was a blessing to
dream and live it again. Tell your broken maestro he is
worthy of the song he’s been practicing. Talk with the
instrument in his passion. Let go. Let go. Let’s go. Let it go. I
never understood why crows were not called ‘black doves.’
They are just as beautiful. I never understood why the black
boy was never allowed to know he had the liberty of
dreaming off topic. They are just as beautiful.

Jareen Imam author photo

Jeremiah Davis is poet as well as an author. He has been writing poetry since grade school. Jeremiah started writing to better battle mental illness and overcome bullying. He has been published in The Perch Magazine, Phemme Zine, Junto Magazine, and more. He is twenty-two with aspirations higher than his age. More of his work can be found here.

Lake Girl

Meg Eden

 

Jareen Imam author photo

Meg Eden’s work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She has five poetry chapbooks, and her novel “Post-High School Reality Quest” is published with California Coldblood, an imprint of Rare Bird Books. Find her online at www.megedenbooks.com or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal.

Baby Island

Riley Welch

Jareen Imam author photo

Riley Welch is a poet from Texas living in Denver. Her work has previously appeared in The Write Launch and Authentic Texas Magazine, among others. More of her poetry can be found at her blog, arhymeaday.com

 

National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month — Break Poetry Open

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like... the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

Poetry Month Spotlight

by | Apr 1, 2019 | Feminism, Meet Our Authors, National Poetry Month, NPM 2019, Poetry, Reading

Poetry Month Spotlight

The Bare Lit Anthology

Literature by writers of colour published in the UK remains overburdened by a bulk of constraints. Often it fixes complicated narratives to personal struggles, consigning them to domains of the confessionnal, inner moral clashes, and the impossibly tragic.

The inauguration of the Bare Lit Festival in February 2016 marked a significant turning point. Rather than centring writers’ work around prescriptive themes, the festival looked to open possibilities beyond them. Through readings, conversations, panels, and performances, we were adamant to overcome the anachronism that exists between the vast spectrum of work produced by writers of colour and the kind of exposure they receive. With the generous help of our audiences and supporters, Bare Lit was able to honour their work both artistically and financially.

The accompanying anthology builds upon this achievement. Calling on participants and writers of colour UK-wide, we asked contributors to submit their writing in line with the aims and ethos of Bare Lit. The response was overwhelming—thank you to everyone who contributed.

We received over a hundred submissions of prose and poetry covering an impressive range. Writers took us on flights of fancy, pandering to multiple worlds while engaging us in their literary imaginations. Every submission was carefully discussed and considered on the premise of originality, relevance, and often a certain kind of gut feeling.

The selection presented here brings together original, previously unpublished works of contemporary prose and poetry by established as well as lesser known writers, giving both the opportunity to work with this volume’s brilliant editors, Kavita Bhanot and Courttia Newland, who have honed each piece to its utmost and without whom the anthology would not have been possible. The final pieces cover an unimaginably vast scope, reflecting the wide, and at times irreconcilable and contradictory, range of themes and the political élan present in the work of writers of colour in this particular period. In this sense, they are not canonical but anticanonical, and vested in the many global and diasporic vernaculars.

—From the foreword by Bare Lit co-founder and anthology co-editor Mend Mariwany

A fiction and poetry anthology in support of the Bare Lit Festival, showcasing award-winning British authors of color.

In 2016, a group of UK authors of color founded the Bare Lit Festival: the first ever literary and author festival featuring only UK writers of color. Bare Lit collects short stories and poetry by literary luminaries whose work represents the values and mission of the festival. Edited by Kavita Bhanot, editor of Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, Courttia Newland, author of The Gospel According to Cane, and Bare Lit Festival cofounder Mend Mariwany, all proceeds of this anthology go toward direct support of the Bare Lit Festival for authors of color.

The Bare Lit Anthology is an excellent way to read and discover talented BAME poets working in the UK.

National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month — Break Poetry Open

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like... the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

Literature by writers of colour published in the UK remains overburdened by a bulk of constraints. Often it fixes complicated narratives to personal struggles, consigning them to domains of the confessionnal, inner moral clashes, and the impossibly tragic.

The inauguration of the Bare Lit Festival in February 2016 marked a significant turning point. Rather than centring writers’ work around prescriptive themes, the festival looked to open possibilities beyond them. Through readings, conversations, panels, and performances, we were adamant to overcome the anachronism that exists between the vast spectrum of work produced by writers of colour and the kind of exposure they receive. With the generous help of our audiences and supporters, Bare Lit was able to honour their work both artistically and financially.

The accompanying anthology builds upon this achievement. Calling on participants and writers of colour UK-wide, we asked contributors to submit their writing in line with the aims and ethos of Bare Lit. The response was overwhelming—thank you to everyone who contributed.

We received over a hundred submissions of prose and poetry covering an impressive range. Writers took us on flights of fancy, pandering to multiple worlds while engaging us in their literary imaginations. Every submission was carefully discussed and considered on the premise of originality, relevance, and often a certain kind of gut feeling.

The selection presented here brings together original, previously unpublished works of contemporary prose and poetry by established as well as lesser known writers, giving both the opportunity to work with this volume’s brilliant editors, Kavita Bhanot and Courttia Newland, who have honed each piece to its utmost and without whom the anthology would not have been possible. The final pieces cover an unimaginably vast scope, reflecting the wide, and at times irreconcilable and contradictory, range of themes and the political élan present in the work of writers of colour in this particular period. In this sense, they are not canonical but anticanonical, and vested in the many global and diasporic vernaculars.

—From the foreword by Bare Lit co-founder and anthology co-editor Mend Mariwany

A fiction and poetry anthology in support of the Bare Lit Festival, showcasing award-winning British authors of color.

In 2016, a group of UK authors of color founded the Bare Lit Festival: the first ever literary and author festival featuring only UK writers of color. Bare Lit collects short stories and poetry by literary luminaries whose work represents the values and mission of the festival. Edited by Kavita Bhanot, editor of Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, Courttia Newland, author of The Gospel According to Cane, and Bare Lit Festival cofounder Mend Mariwany, all proceeds of this anthology go toward direct support of the Bare Lit Festival for authors of color.

The Bare Lit Anthology is an excellent way to read and discover talented BAME poets working in the UK.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month — Break Poetry Open

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like... the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

About The Bare Lit 2016 Anthology

Literature by writers of colour published in the UK remains overburdened by a bulk of constraints. Often it fixes complicated narratives to personal struggles, consigning them to domains of the confessionnal, inner moral clashes, and the impossibly tragic.

The inauguration of the Bare Lit Festival in February 2016 marked a significant turning point. Rather than centring writers’ work around prescriptive themes, the festival looked to open possibilities beyond them. Through readings, conversations, panels, and performances, we were adamant to overcome the anachronism that exists between the vast spectrum of work produced by writers of colour and the kind of exposure they receive. With the generous help of our audiences and supporters, Bare Lit was able to honour their work both artistically and financially.

The accompanying anthology builds upon this achievement. Calling on participants and writers of colour UK-wide, we asked contributors to submit their writing in line with the aims and ethos of Bare Lit. The response was overwhelming—thank you to everyone who contributed.

We received over a hundred submissions of prose and poetry covering an impressive range. Writers took us on flights of fancy, pandering to multiple worlds while engaging us in their literary imaginations. Every submission was carefully discussed and considered on the premise of originality, relevance, and often a certain kind of gut feeling.

The selection presented here brings together original, previously unpublished works of contemporary prose and poetry by established as well as lesser known writers, giving both the opportunity to work with this volume’s brilliant editors, Kavita Bhanot and Courttia Newland, who have honed each piece to its utmost and without whom the anthology would not have been possible. The final pieces cover an unimaginably vast scope, reflecting the wide, and at times irreconcilable and contradictory, range of themes and the political élan present in the work of writers of colour in this particular period. In this sense, they are not canonical but anticanonical, and vested in the many global and diasporic vernaculars.

—From the foreword by Bare Lit co-founder and anthology co-editor Mend Mariwany

A fiction and poetry anthology in support of the Bare Lit Festival, showcasing award-winning British authors of color.

In 2016, a group of UK authors of color founded the Bare Lit Festival: the first ever literary and author festival featuring only UK writers of color. Bare Lit collects short stories and poetry by literary luminaries whose work represents the values and mission of the festival. Edited by Kavita Bhanot, editor of Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, Courttia Newland, author of The Gospel According to Cane, and Bare Lit Festival cofounder Mend Mariwany, all proceeds of this anthology go toward direct support of the Bare Lit Festival for authors of color.

The Bare Lit Anthology is an excellent way to read and discover talented BAME poets working in the UK.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month — Break Poetry Open

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices want to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like... the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill Press.

Brain Mill Press Celebrates Poetry Month 2015 Winning Poets

by | Apr 1, 2019 | NPM 2015, Poetry

We’re overwhelmed by the positive response to our first poetry month. Both weeks, we had talented poets participate, and it was a particular joy to showcase their poems on our blog. During the events, when we received a new poem in our inbox, it was genuinely exciting. We read them right away, and we read them out loud. These poems provided respite and conversation to a very small but very busy publishing house, and then provided discussion and ideas to our audience when they were shared.

So one might ask, if these poems, all of them, already did so much, why recognize “winners?” It’s a valid question, and an important one, and the answer reflects this — because poetry is important and it is valid, and there is significant skill and craft and self employed in the writing of a poem in addition to singing. All of these poems sang, all of them, and it is a human impulse to sing of ourselves and for others, and also, there are poets seriously dedicated to making poems as beautiful as can be borne, and who are in conversation with formal constraints, history, language, and influences. Recognizing such poets forwards poetry for all of us — in the reading and writing of it, and of its significant use in activism, which is desperately required in our world.

Poets are still executed, detained, imprisoned, and otherwise silenced, all over the world, for writing poems. Iranian peace poet Hashem Shabaani was hanged for his work by a tribunal last winter. Susana Chávez Castillo (Mexico), an outspoken poet and women’s rights activist, was found brutally murdered, a crime believed to be associated with her political and artistic expression. Currently, poets Aron Atabek (Kazakhstan), Mohammed Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami (Qatar), Enoh Meyomesse (Cameroon), and Liu Xia (China) are imprisoned for their poems and speech by their governments or government factions — all in inhumane conditions.

Poems and poets are important. Recognition and promotion of poems is vital. Poems are a vital contribution of speech, and they have often been the speech that has sang the purest, and the loudest, and the most human.

Elizabeth Berry is our 2015 overall winner of Brain Mill Press Celebrates Poetry Month events. Her poems, On Growing Up, submitted to the WORK event, and Stars in the Sky, submitted to the LOVE OR FEAR event, are arresting for their authority, the intensity of their anger at where the women they speak of find themselves, honed with plain language and sharp metaphor. Her two poems resolve nothing in their ending lines, and yet push to the reader to feel catharsis.

Additionally, Brain Mill Press would like to recognize two runners up, G.B. Gordon and Pam Faste. you by Gordon showcases a lyrical attention to language and is deeply romantic without sweetness. We found you to be both spare and heavy with the feeling of the speaker. Faste’s poem, Moment Before, captures beautifully a small and breathless moment of infatuated anxiety that all of us deep in love or like or crush have felt so keenly.

Thank you, everyone, and please share this announcement far and wide.

On Growing Up

On the day that my grandfather died my grandmother lit a cigarette looked down at the stricken faces of her children and said well, we still have this farm to take care of. My mother, then eight, looked out the window at the cows that crowded the fence, waiting for food, for release from the swollen udders, and beyond at the hay, tall in the fields, and at the tractors resting in the sheds, waiting for the long legs of morning to walk up and turn the key.

At eighteen, my mother, as lean and brown as a leather strap covered her face and veiled her reasons to follow my father a hundred miles from home.

Three kids in three years.

        Mortgage

                yard

                        car

                                pool

                                        PTA

Low money, no money, grocery store clerk, pregnant daughter, baby crying all night, no lights, pay that bill but another’s coming.

And so it went for thirty years. Yet every month they would drive back over the mountain as visitors, and sit, drinking tea until the cows moaned and the others rose to go to work.

Occasionally, reluctant to unclasp ourselves from the circle of laughter and soft shadows that floated down from the familiar ceilings, we would follow them to the cool concrete floors, and clanging gates of the milking barn. My mother, face lit by the glow of the yellow interior lights, moved quickly to lead, to coax the herd into position and nodded with satisfaction when they lined up, and did their jobs.

Stars in the Sky

Maybe your cancer has come back and that is why it is so hard to sleep and when you do sleep you wake up with a throat full of sand and you stumble across the worn wood floors to the kitchen for water and gulp it down by the glassful trying not to look at the window because the moon might look back and once you lock eyes with it it’s hard not to notice the blanket of stars that spreads out forever

and there’s just something about a blanket of stars spreading out forever that is destroying you making your heart literally ache in your body as you yearn for a boy’s fat hand in your hand his face a moon shining back in a picture that you keep hidden in a drawer with all of the other sharp knives safe there from stars raining down from skies from windshields exploding on impact.

You rub the scars. Stare out the window.

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices wants to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like . . . the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill.