Photo by Christine Zilka

What do you think?

by Sarah Garzoni

So happy to have my poem “Last Call” in the Drink-themed issue of Muzzle Magazine alongside my word-brother Rickey Laurentiis. Pour yourself a drink and then click here to read.

I, for one, prefer Johnnie Walker Double Black on the rocks.

My latest piece for Lambda Literary is up and running. Here’s an excerpt:

To pretend that a conversation about beauty isn’t, in fact, a conversation about privilege is an act of privilege. When an emerging writer pens an essay praising Anne Sexton for her beauty without quoting any of her poems, I sigh. I go read an essay by Audre Lorde. I try to work on a poem, but can’t concentrate. I think about how few gay men were in attendance at the Adrienne Rich memorial reading at Columbia last month and I wonder if, perhaps, she wasn’t beautiful enough for them to show up.

And go here to read the rest.

by Lee Jung

When the only light is fire / I run past what I thought was the end / of myself.

There will never be a moment in my life (or yours) in which the following sentence isn’t both relevant and obvious: Everything is about to happen.

I’m about to travel the world for a year.

On June 1, 2012, I will have given most of my belongings to close friends for safe keeping and moved out of my apartment here in Harlem. The following day I will have brunch with those close friends in the East Village. That night I will perform at the Nuyorican with some old and new poet friends. What a perfect way to say “see you later” to the city that has taught and given and groped and loved me so fiercely.

On June 3, I will head to Memphis, the city where I was born, the city where my mother died and is now buried. A few days later, I will go to New Orleans to do research on a writing project. Then on to San Francisco for a week or so of memory making. In mid-June, I’ll make my way to Columbus, Ohio to perform at Columbus State Community College’s Pride event. Then I will head to Cave Canem’s poetry retreat in Pennsylvania. It will be my last destination in the United States for a year.

I will then fly to Berlin and begin my year abroad. My goal is to visit four continents while I continue to write poems and work on my demonic little memoir. Also, I will be writing for Ebony.com about my experiences while traveling. And — and! — I will maintain a wonderful international poetry memoir travel writing hybrid Tumblr.

Some of the places I hope to visit include Munich, Paris, Nice, Cannes, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bali, Buenos Aires, Montevideo.

I’m excited. I’m freaking out. I’m thrilled. I’m overwhelmed.

But hey — now you know.

At some point, each of us – if we haven’t already – will learn how grief can turn holidays against us. The very occasions we once looked forward to become barbed and treacherous. It feels like a betrayal. By now, I’ve made it through the first cycle of my mother’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

My first piece for Ebony.com, “Infinite Ache: The First Mother’s Day Without Her” went up earlier this week and I have been blown away by the response. All I wanted to do was write an essay that would give readers a real sense of who my mother was as well as the reality of the first year of grief. In the last couple of days, so many of you have gotten in touch and said that the essay provided some comfort as they themselves prepare to face Mother’s Day without a parent. My heart is with you.

Love y’all.

A little under the weather today, but I’m really grateful to my friend Darnell Moore for pointing me to this video of Jacqui Alexander discussing her relationship with Audre Lorde. The clip is part of the Signified Project which is worth looking into as well.

By June 3, I will have moved out of my apartment in Harlem, given all of my things away (aside from a few books that you’ll have to pry out of my dead hands) and started my year of globe trotting. More about that later, but for now: I plan on saying goodbye to New York City the best way I know how… reading, reading, reading!

• Monday, May 14 at 6pm, I will join Joan Larkin, Michael Montlack, Elaine Sexton, Eric Sasson, Bo McGuire, and Daniel WK Lee to celebrate the latest issue of BLOOM. The reading will take place at the LGBT Center on 208 W. 13th Street.
• Thursday, May 17, I’ll be reading from my chapbook WHEN THE ONLY LIGHT IS FIRE at the William Way Community Center in Philly. The reading is from 7-9pm. Go here for details.
• Thursday, May 31, I’ll be back in NYC to read with Christopher Stoddard at Dixon Place. The event starts at 9:30.
• Saturday, June 2, I’ll join an amazing line-up of performers at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe for “The Biggest Gayest Show Ever.” Hosted by Natasha Miller and Mohogany Browne. The show will be from 6:30-8:30 with an after party to follow.

Whew! That’s a lot of readings. I might have to do yoga in order to prepare. 

by Lee Eunyeol

After the publication of Tender Is The Night, Fitzgerald asked Hemingway what he thought of the novel. Hemingway’s entire letter is a must-read, but if anything, get into this excerpt:

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.

About this time I wouldn’t blame you if you gave me a burst. Jesus it’s marvellous to tell other people how to write, live, die etc.

I’m still taking it all in. Reading at Housing Works Bookstore with Karolina Manko, US Poet Laureate Philip Levine and Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy K. Smith last night at Tumblr/Knopf’s Celebrate Poetry event was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. By the time I got home, my face hurt from smiling so much.

Karolina is only 21 years old, but brought such a fierce heart to the stage. The poems Tracy read from Life On Mars managed to keep their feet on the ground, but their heads in the stars. When she read the line, “We saw to the edge of all there is,” I literally gasped.

And Mr. Levine! First of all, he’s so incredibly nice. Karolina and I were too shy to go talk to him on our own, but a wonderful friend of Knopf was kind enough to introduce us. Instantly, I felt silly for being so shy. He talks to you like you are a person. That’s obvious and yet increasingly rare among writers as celebrated as he is.

When he got on stage, he said, “I’ve added up the ages of the other three readers and I’m two years younger than them.” Every poem he read was, of course, a knock out. I’m debating getting the last two lines from “Of Love & Other Disasters” tattooed across my face. Toward the end of his reading, Philip said “I’ve got a language problem, too. The poems don’t come out the way I want. I want them immortal, but they come out mortal.”

I hear that, man. I hear that.