“Don’t you hate when editors use the ‘I don’t know enough writers of color’ excuse to back up the homogeneity of their publications?” Now you can add your info to a working list of writers of color.
“We live in a prose culture, a film culture, a media culture, but I think we should live in a poetry culture; and I want to steal everything back, from everywhere, and put it back in poetry; that is my ambition.” Watch or listen to Alice Notley in conversation with erica kaufman last week at the CUNY Graduate Center.
“But the worst part was that it put the squeeze on all of us who were caught in the middle: women of color and trans folks, lefties, feminists, and radicals who had very deep reservations about call-out culture, purity politics, and the veneration of rage in activist circles.” – Katherine Cross writes about call-out culture and “tone policing” in online activism for Feministing.
“As a perpetual outsider, in virtue of my brown immigrant body, my accent, mannerisms, and the assumptions about my affinities and motivations, I have encountered what are termed as microaggressions both within the classroom and in context of presenting my research.” – Professor Saba Fatima on being a woman of color in academia.
“The individual narrative isn’t self-indulgence — I have learned more & understood more about sexual violence and the after-effects of trauma from reading the poetry of my friends, the essays of people who became my friends, and the writing of people who are still strangers on the Internet” – Sonya Vatomsky rounds up a list of venues where you can send writing about sexual violence.
“How can I say this once and for all: writing ‘political’ poems—or poems about political struggles—is not a choice; it doesn’t feel like an ‘aesthetic’ either—it is the only possible step toward liberation.” – WEIRD SISTER contributor Jennifer Tamayo’s latest pieces for the Poetry Foundation blog highlight undocumented poets who “refuse silence.”
Amy Schumer is basically killing it with her amazing Friday Night Lights parody (*Clear eyes, full hearts, don’t rape*), and her Last Fuckable Day skit on women and ageism in the media.
Miranda July’s Somebody app is back—and you can listen to WEIRD SISTER contributing editor Becca Klaver’s recent Somebody story on this week’s Real Housewives of Bohemia podcast.
Check out new poems from Safe Places participants Caroline Crew and Chris Emslie on the Ruth Stone Foundation website.
Sarah Marcus shares poems by high school students exploring race, gender, and identity.
The controversial Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival will end this year.
Christopher Soto talks with Cristian Flores Garcia about the Undocupoets Campaign on the VIDA site, and writes about the consumption of POC pain for the Best American Poetry Blog: “I want people to act, I want people to mobilize around POC sadness. Don’t just feel bad about our stories, consume us, and spit us out….”
“I do consider this to be a feminist issue — but not only that. Youthful achievement is often linked to privilege.” – Robin Black questions youth-based literary awards.
What did we miss this week? Let us know in the comments! <3
