RECOMMENDED VIBES FROM THE ZOOM DESK OF LEYNA BOHNING
Kevin Latimer, Zoetrope (Grieveland, 2020)
Purchase Zoetrope from Grieveland, a local Cleveland publisher.
Zoetrope (in me, not disasters) is the front face of my bookshelf, it is behind me every Zoom meeting. I want people to see this book and think what kind of book it must be for me to want to show it off in that way.
I love books that grab your heart and squeeze it in a way that’s just a little rude; I love books wrapped in grief, not self-pity; books that make me criticize myself, better myself through another's eyes. Zoetrope does all of this in the form of poetry, opera, playwriting, magic.
I want people to read this book not only because it’s absolutely beautiful, but also because everyone deserves to see this world Latimer creates. This opera he conducts is full of black folx in space, living, dreaming, and becoming stars.
Kevin Latimer is a poet and playwright. He is the founder & co-editor-in-chief of BARNHOUSE, a writing collective. His poems can be found in jubilat, Poetry Northwest, Passages North, Storm Cellar, & elsewhere. His plays have been produced by convergence-continuum. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Leila Chatti, Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020)
*And inaugural Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Writing and Publishing at the Cleveland State University Poetry Center!
Purchase Deluge from Copper Canyon Books!
I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about Leila Chatti’s Deluge! It’s so beautiful. So, so beautiful. A book that makes me so aware of my blood is a book worth all my time.
Quoting passages from the Qur’an, Chatti finds a maternity figure, a co-pilot, a contemporary, in the Virgin Mary, and as Chatti navigates her own illness, she finds comfort in knowing that Mary was a woman like her. That Mary bled like her, had a cervix like her. The book is so womanly. So powerful. Something we all need.
Leila Chatti is a Tunisian-American poet and author of Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), and the chapbooks Ebb (Akashic Books, 2018) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. She is the recipient of a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant, scholarships from the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, The Frost Place, and the Key West Literary Seminar, and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, and Cleveland State University, where she was the inaugural Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Writing & Publishing. Her poems appear in Ploughshares, Tin House, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Mary-Kim Arnold, Litany for the Long Moment (Essay Press, 2018)
Selected by Carla Harryman for the Essay Press Open Book Contest, 2016!
Purchase Litany for the Long Moment from Essay Press!
I'm reading Litany for the Long Moment in (our very own) Caryl Pagel's Collective Essay seminar at the NEOMFA. I love this book for its form, questions, and overflowing curiosity. Rarely does an essay implicate me in its journey and rarely have I reread an entire book after finishing it the day before.
I’ll admit, my attraction to this book originated from my love of the Korean language and my love of learning the Korean language. Arnold very quickly changed my priorities and showed me what a real story looks like: a thing of identity, longing, and phantom pain.
Visually, this book is stunning. I wish I could hang the pages on my wall. Arnold integrates unanswerable questions with photographs, documents, and citations like an investigator, detective, or bricoleur.
Mary-Kim Arnold is a poet and visual artist. Her work has been featured in a number of literary and art journals, including Tin House, The Georgia Review, Hyperallergic, and the Rumpus, where she was Essays Editor from 2013–2015. She was born in Seoul, and was raised in New York. She holds graduate degrees from Brown University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Rhode Island.
Rudy Francisco, Helium (Button Poetry, 2017)
Purchase Helium from Button Poetry!
At the Button Poetry's AWP booth, I was told to pick three books; as the only person in the booth I felt self-conscious about taking my time, so I picked out whatever I thought looked nice. Helium stood out.
The poems are breathtaking and captivating. I’ve found that poems about love rarely are and rarely are poetry books so light. While it’s important for poetry burn everything down, especially when the world’s already on fire, sometimes it’s nice to float above the heat for a little while. This book is also front facing on my bookshelf, but not for the same purpose as Zoetrope. I love the cover so much I just want to stare at it in my Zoom reflection.
Rudy Francisco is one of the most recognizable names in Spoken Word Poetry. At the age of 21, Rudy completed his B.A in Psychology and decided to continue his education by pursuing a M.A in Organizational Studies. As an artist, Rudy Francisco is an amalgamation of social critique, introspection, honesty and humor. He uses personal narratives to discuss the politics of race, class, gender and religion while simultaneously pinpointing and reinforcing the interconnected nature of human existence.
suggi, “astroboy.” (cheer up!, suggi)
I wanted to take a short break from poetry and prose to mention “astroboy,” a song that has captivated me during this quarantined semester. I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately, lying on my floor and staring at my ceiling. It’s helped me reset and think about things a little differently.
I need reminders that my place in time is not something to compare to others. I’m on a path different from others and it’s okay to do things at a different pace. I keep forgetting that I’m still in my early twenties.
About twice a year I write on my wrist or on the chalkboard in my office the Korean word for “It’s okay/I’m okay” (괜찮아).
“astroboy.” is the melodic equivalent for me. I play it when I need to tell myself that it’s okay. Or even when I need to tell myself it’s okay to not be okay (괜찮지 않아도 괜찮아).
I wonder if you need reminders too.
suggi is a YouTube star who has gained fame for his channel. He has earned popularity for his original vocal covers of popular songs across multiple countries, including those from South Korea's K-pop industry and the US mainstream pop charts.
Danez Smith, “Dinosaurs in the Hood” (Button Poetry, Black Movie)
Purchase Black Movie from Button Poetry!
I found this video on Facebook a few weeks ago; with all the pain and frustration accumulating in the nation right now, it was a nice respite on my feed. I come back to this performance often, particularly when my day hasn’t been the best.
Smith’s performance makes my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. His words are so vivid, I feel as though I am sitting in the theater and watching this movie, he writes manifest before my eyes.
I’ve been keeping a list of books to buy (my book purchasing has gotten a little out of control since the pandemic; lists keep me from going overboard) and Smith's Black Movie is a priority. Smith has done a few performances of poems from this book that you can find on Button’s website or YouTube channel and every. single. one. is. a. gem.
Danez Smith is the winner of a 2014 Ruth Lilly/Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of “[insert] boy” (YesYes Books, 2014), one of the Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2014, & two chapbooks– “black movie” (Button Poetry, 2015), winner of the 2014 Button Poetry Prize, & “hands on ya knees” (Penmanship Books, 2013). Smith is a Cave Canem, VONA, and McKnight Foundation Fellow. His writing has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, Narrative & elsewhere. He was featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Emerging Poets Series by Patricia Smith. He is a founding member of the multi-genre, multicultural collective Dark Noise. Danez placed second at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam and is the two-time Rustbelt Regional Champion. In 2014, he was the Festival Director for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam. He holds a BA from UW-Madison where he was a First Wave Urban Arts Scholar. He lives in Minneapolis, MN.
Leyna Bohning is a third-year NEOMFA fiction candidate and has three kittens named after Sherlock Holmes characters. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she was the co-Editor for Underground Pool and an intern for the American Poetry Review. When she’s not writing she’s teaching herself Korean, taking polaroid pictures, or doing paint-by-numbers.