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Makalani Bandele’s *Hellfightin*
Detroit, MI: Willow Books, 2012. 65 pages. $14.95. (ARTWORK: Courtesy) There’s a lot of music in Makalani Bandele’s debut Hellfightin (Willow Books, 2012). The title’s a subtle bow to the Harlem...
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Tidal Basin Review Doing Big Things!
(PHOTO: Tidal Basin Review) Click the artwork to view larger image. If you’re like me, you probably wondered what brought on the unseasonably warm weather a couple of weeks ago. And, like me, you’ll...
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Monica Hand’s *me and Nina*
Farmington, MA: Alice James Books, 2012. 78 pages. $15.95. (ARTWORK: Krista Franklin) The world continues to remember Nina Simone (formerly Eunice Kathleen Waymon) as a storyteller through songs, whose...
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National Poetry Month!
(PHOTO: Melanie Taub/NPR) What’s exciting about National Poetry Month is this series NPR is doing called Muses and Metaphors. Last month, NPR’s Producer Argin Hutchins and Senior Producer Davar Ardalan...
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Blackbird Poetry Festival
(IMAGE: HoCoPoLitSo and Howard Community College) This time of year, Poetry gets a lot of attention from the mainstream public. News organizations around the country that would otherwise snub her...
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2012 Awards Mark Best Year Ever for DC-based Nonprofit
Full disclosure: I’m the senior program director for the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop. We’re always bragging about our students. They’re always doing amazing things. Here’s another post about what...
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I’m on the show THE POET AND THE POEM
(Marlene Lillian Photography) According to the Library of Congress’s website: The Poet and the Poem is an ongoing series of live poetry interviews at the Library of Congress with distinguished artists....
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Curtis Crisler: Migration of a Latchkey Boy
(PHOTO: William Bryant Rozier) Curtis Crisler Curtis Crisler’s unnamed speaker is a griot of sorts. His distant kin, fleeing from Jim Crow and southern domestic terrorism, joins the 5 million African...
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Tim Seibles: A Product of Sweat and Patience
(PHOTO: Helenbackrwards.com) Tim Seibles is a literary treasure. Understanding how Tim Seibles got the National Book Foundation’s attention requires some knowledge of neuroscience and of his...
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Rejoicing in the Church of Poetry
(PHOTO: Steven Pinker) I’m coming off a high after graduation last month. I finished the Stonecoast M.F.A. Low-Residency Program at the University of Southern Maine, a two-year journey I started for...
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Willow Books, The Motown Records of Book Publishing
(Courtesy of Willow Books/Aquarius Press) Started in 2007, Willow Books, an imprint of Aquarius Press, is still in its childhood. Yet the six-year-old Detroit-based press is rapidly becoming the Motown...
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The Invisible Man in Iain Haley Pollock’s SPIT BACK A BOY
(ARTWORK: Krista Franklin) Like Ralph Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man, Iain Haley Pollock’s speaker in Spit Back A Boy is the invisible underdog. He’s a man torn between his “black mother’s...
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A Poet on his Way to a Reading
(PHOTO: Courtesy of Sidwell Friends School) That’s me, right there! Yesterday, I left work around 9:30am and hopped the red line to the Tenleytown Metro Station. During my 13-minute walk, I took a...
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The Birth of POINT BLANK
This piece was written for Free Black Space, an awesome blog by Yao Glover. Here’s an excerpt: I’m a different poet now than I was when I wrote DRIFT. I wasn’t a father at the time and I’d written...
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Point Blank Named Among the “Ten Best Poetry Books of 2016” by Beltway Poetry
I’m honored to be on this list with so many great writers. Click the Facebook post below to read the full list. Point Blank is available on Amazon. You can also find it at your local bookstore.
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How It Feels
I’m grateful to Rattle for publishing my poem, “How It Feels,” in their current issue. I also appreciate the encouraging words from friends. I’m dedicating the poem to any new parent(s) who’s had to...
View ArticlePOINT BLANK Year in Review
On Oct. 18, 2016, Silver Birch Press took a chance with me and published my latest poetry collection, POINT BLANK. A lot happened since then. For starters, I got a review in the Washington City Paper....
View ArticleAudiobook Update!
All of the poems and the outro are recorded. I have three poems left for which I need to do sound design. You can listen to the sample rough tracks on the playlist below.
View ArticleThe Island of Smiles
This video is inspired by my poem, “The Island of Smiles,” which appears in my forthcoming chapbook.
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