"Lessons I Learned From Selena" by Gigi Bella, at Project X, Bronx N.Y.

"Lessons I Learned From Selena" by Gigi Bella, at Project X, Bronx N.Y.

https://www.SlamFind.com is a simple yet powerful platform for you to find live spoken word venues near you and watch slam poetry performance videos from around the world

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Filmed at Project X in Bronx NY: https://www.facebook.com/theBXproject/

"OCD" by Neil Hilborn

"OCD"

by Neil Hilborn

The first time I saw her,
Everything in my head went quiet.
All the ticks, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips.
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.
On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or talking to her.
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times at different times of the day.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely lock the door eighteen times.
I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.
At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.
And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
But then.
She said I was taking up too much of her time.
That I couldn’t kiss her goodbye so much because I was making her late for work.
When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line. When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking.
And last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but.
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touch her?
Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.
Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars.
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel.
How she turns shower knobs like she opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out—
Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.
I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once -
He doesn’t care if it’s perfect!
I want her back so bad,
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on.

Neil Hilborn

Website | Instagram @neilicorn | Facebook @neilhilborn | Twitter @neilicorn

Get Neil’s book, THE FUTURE: http://bit.ly/neilfuture

Neil Hilborn is a College National Poetry Slam champion, and a 2011 graduate with honors from Macalester College with a degree in Creative Writing. He has two full-length collections of poetry: Our Numbered Days (Button Poetry, 2015) and The Future (Button Poetry, 2018). His chapbook, Clatter is also available.

Neil was a member of the 2011 Macalester Poetry Slam team, which ranked first in the nation at the 2011 College National Poetry Slam. He co-coached the 2012 Macalester team, leading them to a second place finish nationally. He was also a member of the Minneapolis adult National Poetry Slam team in 2011, which placed 5th out of 80 teams from cities across the country at the adult National Poetry Slam. He is the co-founder of Thistle, a Macalester literary magazine, and has run numerous writing workshops with college and high school students. His work has been featured in publications such as Borderline Magazine and Orange Quarterly.

"In Which I Do Not Fear Harvey Dent" by Brenna Twohy

 

"In Which I Do Not Fear Harvey Dent" by Brenna Twohy

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About Button:

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry's audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

Hanif Abdurraqib, poet and 2021 MacArthur Fellow

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. 

His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York 

Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) 

"All Of The Ways I've Kept Myself Alive"  by Hanif Abdurraqib

His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. 

His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. 

He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. 

In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. 

The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

"A Poem In Which No Black People Are Dead"
by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

Get Hanif's book, THE CROWN AIN'T WORTH MUCH: http://bit.ly/hanifcrown

"Some I Love Who are Dead" by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

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"Ok, I'm Finally Ready To Say Sorry For That One Summer" by Hanif Abdurraqib

Hanif Abdurraqib

Music Critic, Essayist, and Poet | Class of 2021

Forging a distinctive style of cultural and artistic criticism through the lens of popular music and autobiography.

 

Hanif Abdurraqib is a music critic, essayist, and poet using the lens of popular music to examine the broader culture that produces and consumes it. With an intimate and welcoming writing style that establishes an immediate connection with readers, he blends autobiography, social history, and keen insights into specific technical and emotional aspects of a song, an album, or a performance.

Many of the essays in Abdurraqib’s first collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017), grew out of reviews and articles he wrote while a journalist; taken together, they form a deeply personal consideration of self-identity and the continued suffering inflicted on Black bodies at the hands of police and others. For example, he writes about attending a Bruce Springsteen concert days after visiting a memorial for Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and struggling to reconcile his technical appreciation of the music with the racialized and gendered stories told by the lyrics. In his book Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest (2019), Abdurraqib traces the three-decade history of the pioneering hip-hop group and its impact within the larger hip-hop movement. He writes with clear affection for the group, and his assessment of the social and political atmosphere in which it operated includes reflections on how those same forces shaped his childhood and his experience of the music. Some sections are stylized as personal letters directed to members of the group, while others analyze its shifting aesthetic practices, such as how and why their wide-ranging use of sampling in early releases was later curtailed. Abdurraqib delves more deeply into historical research for his most recent book, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance (2021). His thought-provoking observations on key artists and cultural moments in music, film, dance, and comedy—ranging from William Henry Lane, a nineteenth-century minstrel dancer who performed for White audiences in blackface, to Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl appearance and the dance and music television show Soul Train—form a focused analysis of Blackness and a celebration of Black identity. Abdurraqib uses particular events and personal experiences, such as a live performance by a Black punk band or reminiscences about Wu Tang Clan, to explore themes such as Black anger and the entertainment industry’s long history of exploiting and abusing Black artists.

In addition to his writing on music, Abdurraqib is a noted poet. Pop culture and music feature heavily in his poetry, which ranges across subjects both personal and public and addresses themes of race, class, and the politics of our present moment. Omnivorous in his influences and prolific in his output, Abdurraqib is forging a new form of cultural criticism, one that is informed by lived experience and offers incisive social and artistic critiques.

"At My First Punk Rock Show Ever" by Hanif Abdurraqib

performing at Camp Bar in Saint Paul, MN.

About Button Poetry:

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry's audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

"It's A Lot" by Jon Sands

"It's A Lot" by Jon Sands

reading at Berl's Poetry Shop in Brooklyn, December 12th, 2018. 

Jon Sands is a winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series, selected for his second book, It's Not Magic (Beacon Press, 2019). He is also the author of The New Clean, and the co-host of The Poetry Gods Podcast. His work has been featured in the New York Times and anthologized in The Best American Poetry. He teaches a weekly writing workshop for adults at Bailey House in East Harlem (an HIV/AIDS service center), and has represented New York City multiple times at the National Poetry Slam. He lives in Brooklyn. 

Order Jon's book, It's Not Magic, winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series, here: 

Indiebound: https://bookshop.org/p/books/it-s-not-magic-jon-sands/8990766

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-Magic-Jon-Sands/dp/0807002259

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/its-not-magic-jonathan-sands/1130068966

"Tryouts" (Motionpoems) by Gary Jackson

 Feb 12, 2018

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If you loved this poem, check out Hanif Abdurraqib: http://bit.ly/ImSorryforThatOneSummer

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About Button:

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry's audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.