Bøger udgivet af Button Poetry

"Ebony Stewart reclaims her own narrative to speak against the racism and colorism she's experienced, while criticizing society's treatment of women as sexual objects."--

"Rings on every finger. Hood and educated AF. You've met her. Wearing all her feelings and responding with a side-eye or a tongue-pop. You've seen her. At the grocery store. In restaurants. On the subway. At the bus stop. In a car you pulled up next to blaring whatever matches her mood. Hair in some natural or protective style for the Gods. Ebony Stewart. An around the way girl. One part human, all parts womxn. You know these poems because they be familiar. They be your grandmama, mama, auntie, and sis stories. Welcome to Home. Girl. Hood."--Back cover.

2021 Button Poetry Short Form Poetry Contest Winner What I Learned from the Trees delves into the intricate relationship between humans and nature, and how these often overlooked, everyday interactions affect us as individuals, families, and communities. With a backbone rooted in primordial imagery and allegory, and a focus on how the growing disconnect with our own wants, needs, and fears creates deeper divides in our relationships, this collection is notably relevant to today's society and the struggles we face with the ever-expanding detachment between humans and the natural world. Aren't all living creatures seeking a notable existence? A deep sense of belonging? Of relevance? Of purpose? Of love? How often do we yearn for these wants, yet fight the vulnerability it takes to reach them? Why do we so clearly seek each other, yet refuse to reach out our hands?

"Rachel Wiley, an author who holds many intersecting identities, has written [this book of poetry] as a love letter to her living body. When confronted with fatphobia, racism, misogyny, and shame, each poem chooses self-love, despite society's expectations of conformity. More than just a book about one single identity, [this book] makes intersectionality dimensional"--Publisher marketing.

"Words can only help you if you speak them." -Crown Noble, Bianca PhippsLatinx, queer, poet Bianca Phipps dissects intimate family relationships in hopes of understanding conflict as a means of overcoming. Phipps' debut explores an alternate timeline version of her own childhood and by moving back and forth between those timelines she highlights her own generational inheritance while inviting us to discover our own. A College Spoken Word Phenom, Bianca is no stranger to plucking the heartstrings of readers and listeners. In Crown Noble she translates that charisma and flair for language to help her readers discover - even in the depths of hardship - the joy of family, of language, and of reclaiming your own story. --- Praise for Crown Noble "Bianca brings her heartbreak to life by continuing to build from it. What a joy that we get to hold what Bianca has grown." - Melissa Lozada-Oliva, author of Peluda "[Crown Noble] is a stunning meditation on familial bonds, inheritance, and what we owe to where we come from." - Kevin Kantor, author of Please Come Off-Book

This debut collection plunges deep into the dissection of popular culture, exposing and how the brightness and horrors of it can be mirrors into the daily lived experiences of women in America.

2022 Button Poetry Prize Runner-Up How to Maintain Eye Contact takes readers through a journey of uncertainty and what we make of it. Set in three sections, Robert Wood Lynn explores interior uncertainty, interpersonal uncertainty and uncertainty at a larger scale. These narrative poems, influenced by storytelling traditions, find themselves at the nexus of the intimate and the humorous, as well as the absurd and the tragic. These poems examine isolation and grief in their many forms--through heartbreak or the death of loved ones, or show us the world looking back at itself after it ends.

"Butcher is a book about love & loss--about being unapologetic and transparent in grief. Natasha finds an unexpected solace in the kitchen after losing her best friend and brother, Marcus. Here, using the cuts of the cow as a metaphor, Miller explores addiction, family & tragedy. Butcher takes the body of a cow and cleaves it into 5 parts: envisioning the cuts as relationship with family members and social forces. Her Mother the rib, her Brother the brisket, her queerness as the tongue and cheek... Butcher is raw and tender. It's a book that tells the story of a woman who redefined success after losing the most valuable thing to her."--Amazon.com

One part mixtape, one part disorientation guide, and one part career retrospective, Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre's debut looks you directly in the eye and doesn't let you flinch. Ranging from justice to love, community action to personal reflection, A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry is a dedication to craft. Clocking in before the rest of us are even awake, the book wastes no time. It does the work and beckons you to follow. A compilation of poems, lyrics and essays from the UN presenter, MC, and two-time National Poetry Slam champion, this book is a love song tucked into a grenade, a necessary call that demands a response.

In his debut full length collection, Junious 'Jay' Ward dives deep into the formation of self. Composition interrogates the historical perceptions of Blackness and biracial identity as documented through a Southern Lens. Utilizing a variety of poetic forms, Ward showcases to his readers an innovative approach as he unflinchingly explores the way language, generational trauma, loss, and resilience shape us into who we are, the stories we carry, and what we will inevitably pass on.

Exploring the relationship between blackness, shame, and what it is to live a life tied to the church, this collection is rich with historical context and a deeply engaging personal narrative.

With work that ranges from the laugh out loud funny to the silence of rage and loss, Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self-Destruction is a must read.This is a collection of work that asks itself for forgiveness while becoming an instruction manual on how readers can follow suit. These complex and passionate poems make space for a narrative about the self in the wake of destruction. It explores American culture and examines how Singers identity as a Jewish American underpins daily life. This book tells us that forgiveness has the power to grant a release from the shame we carry about our decisions. Forgive yourself was written from a place of vulnerability and pushes us towards compassion for the person we are with the most, ourselves. Forgive Yourself is a modern handbook for finding yourself and your place without losing your way. Advance praise for Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Forgiveness Jared Singer has constructed deeply nuanced, breathtakingly honest pieces for his readers to revisit often, making new discoveries each time. This collection asserts Singer as an authentic, confessional voice capable of creating depth and complexity that begs for further opening and unraveling. -- Chris August, author of Loving InstrumentsJared Singer is an honest, gentle, fearless engineer who has compiled an in-depth and thorough instruction manual on how to hope, to survive, to cope, and to champion beauty. -- Mighty Mike McGee, ArtistJared Singer's bone shattering honesty is disarming, and delightful. -Rico Frederick, Author of Broken CalypsonianFollowing themes of childhood, self-image, social justice, love, and magic, this collection makes good on its promise of absolution. -- Brendan Constantine, Author Letters to Guns

2023 The Black Caucus of the American Library Association - Poetry Winner 2022 Heartland Bookseller Awards Finalist A Peculiar People creates an entire microcosm within these poems. Steven Willis crafts a cast of characters, showcasing their struggles, identities, & underlying emotions. Willis champions the art of storytelling: weaving pop-culture and screenwriting elements to allow the reader to view this social commentary with a fresh lens. This collection examines the author's life experience; the pain of being Black and facing systemic racism.

This book of poetry "queers the theatrical canon we all grew up with. Kantor critiques the treatment of queer figures and imagines a braver and bolder future that allows queer voices the agency over their own stories. Drawing upon elements of the Aristotelian dramatic structure and the Hero's Journey, [this] is both a love letter to and a ... critique of American culture and the lenses we choose to see ourselves through"--Publisher marketing.

Alternate Cover Limited Edition!Helium is the debut poetry collection by internet phenom Rudy Francisco, whose work has defined poetry for a generation of new readers. Rudy's poems and quotes have been viewed and shared millions of times as he has traveled the country and the world performing for sell-out crowds. Helium is filled with work that is simultaneously personal and political, blending love poems, self-reflection, and biting cultural critique on class, race and gender into an unforgettable whole. Ultimately, Rudy's work rises above the chaos to offer a fresh and positive perspective of shared humanity and beauty.

"Urbanshee is Siaara Freeman's retelling of fairy tales and mythological stories through a modern and urban lens. This collection discusses the weight of being Black in America, Freeman's relationships to lovers and family, and how the physical place you grew up can become part of your identity. Urbanshee expertly combines humor, fantasy, and raw emotion to create this astonishing reinvention of classic fables. Freeman's poems are ventrously unique and are sure to enchant anyone who reads them."--Publisher marketing.

Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair is the latest book by author William Evans, founder of Black Nerd Problems. Evans is a long-standing voice in the performance poetry scene, who has performed at venues across the country and been featured on numerous final stages, including the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam. Evans's commanding, confident style shines through in these poems, which explore masculinity, fatherhood, and family, and what it means to make a home as a black man in contemporary America.

Afterwards is a book about the things that come after trauma. It encompasses the different kinds of grief-- primarily the loss of a friend to suicide, but also the loss of an important relationship, and dealing with some loss related to family. There are frank discussions of mental illness and the spectrum of emotions that come with moving forward.

A hybrid text that deals most urgently in the articulation of growth and grief. After the loss of his mother, Omar Holmon re-learns how to live by immersing himself in popular culture, becoming well-versed in using the many modes of pop culture to spell out his emotions. This book is made up of both poems and essays, drenched in both sadness and unmistakable humour. Teeming with references that are touchable, no matter what you do or don''t know, this book feels warm and inviting.

Birthright is a book that balances the weight of place. The pride and shame and worth of homeland. Palestine, a homeland under siege and under scrutiny from a world that doesn''t occupy its borders. It is a book of immense nuance, pulling together all corners of the author s pride in home, but also a desire to understand the violent cycles of the American machinery of war.

2021 Midwest Book Awards - Poetry Debut Gold Medal Winner 2020 Forewords Reviews INDIES Awards - Poetry Gold Medal Winner "Prophetic in bleak times" --DR. CORNEL WESTThe Willies, Adam Falkner's first full-length poetry collection, offers a sharp and vulnerable portrait of the journey into queerhood in America. In a voice that Dr. Cornel West heralds as "prophetic in bleak times," Falkner departs from a more familiar coming out narrative to center the stories of dueling selves. Masquerading white boy. Child of an addict. Closeted varsity athlete. Drifting seamlessly between the scholarly and conversational, Falkner's poems showcase a versatility of language and a courageous hunger, unafraid of depicting the costumes we use to hide legacies of toxic masculinity. Through snapshots both tragic and humorous, merciless and humane, Falkner offers powerful new ways of understanding the intersectional linkage that binds queer shame to cultural appropriation. At its core, The Willies asks us to consider who we will become if we do not grapple with what scares us most. Advance praise for The Willies Adam Falkner has heard what hums at the marrow of men who deceive themselves in order to survive America. -- SAEED JONES This is truth that changes the air it reaches. This is poetry that, damn it, you can't shake. -- PATRICIA SMITH In these urgent and sometimes mysterious poems, Falkner traces questions of identity, family, love and the self. His language is angular and surprising, his content intimate and profound. -- ANDREW SOLOMONAdam Falkner is a poet with a heart of gold and a spine of steel. We need his prophetic voice in these bleak times. --DR. CORNEL WEST I am thankful for the incisive mind and eye of Adam Falkner. In the poems, the work of balancing several selves at once is done gently, deftly, and with the brilliance of someone curious about how limitless they can become. ― HANIF ABDURRAQIB

From poetry slam champion Porsha O, a debut collection exploring black womanhood.