For those who read about this past Saturday’s book drive at Watts Park and want to donate via Tidal Basin Review, below are mailing and drop-off information: For folks who wish to send/drop off books for DCPS: By Mail: Department of Employment Services Councilmember Yvette M. Alexander Constituent Services Office c/o Amin Muslim Director of […]
Walking past DC’s Watts Park in Northeast, the people stopped in their tracks when they heard Mister Señor Love Daddy, from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, speaking. The fictitious disc jockey was invoked through a poem by Fresno, Texas-poet Jonathan Moody. Through Derrick Weston Brown’s reading of the poem, Love Daddy held court for […]
While teaching in an after-school program one evening, Epiphany walked up and punched me in the face. It happened in the middle of a writing exercise I gave my students. The enthusiasm of some had them writing right away, while others sighed and laid their heads on the desks. One of them rolled her eyes […]
Jaed Coffin drew a diagonal line on an easel pad and called it the spine. That’s the idea of identity, he told a room of writers at a presentation Friday. Coffin drew a wavy line that curved along the diagonal one, and called it the narrative. Then he shaded in dots where the lines intersected. […]
A roomful of writers laughed after Aaron Hamburger noted that nipples shouldn’t be compared to cherries, pencil erasers or Frankenstein’s neck bolts—at least not in literature. “Metaphors should be used to make things clear,” the Stonecoast faculty member said during his presentation. “But we’re all adults, here. I think we’re clear on what a penis […]
During yesterday’s presentation on music and improvisation, Gil Helmick and his band inspired the writers in the room to face their fears off the page. “I’ve actually watched my work change before my eyes while I’m performing,” he said. “Line breaks go. I’ll toss lines over my shoulder like they’re dead birds.” Helmick’s presentation Poetry, […]
My introduction to nature poems came 11 years ago, when I was a freshman in a poetry class at the University of Maryland-College Park. Reading those poems by a handful of white writers was like looking at a painting of a bowl of fruit. Nothing moved in their poems. There was no narrative or deep […]
Snagglepuss is bitter. He airs his frustrations with the Pink Panther on E! True Hollywood Story, after their short-lived love affair: “When the big money came calling Ol’ Pinky packed his bags and gave me some song and dance about how I’d never have to work again […]” (from “Snagglepuss Spills his Guts on E! […]
In both Ruth L. Schwartz’s Edgewater and Brian Gilmore’s Elvis Presley is Alive and Well and Living in Harlem, the speakers tempt God: “tell me why you ever thought/ you could improve on this/ music, this hunger[1]”. They call out the crazy notions floating around in both American history and its politics. The difference between […]
The speakers in Ross Gay’s Against Which and Paul Martínez Pompa’s My Kill Adore Him are not afraid to step into taboo territory. They’re not afraid to question or dare anyone: “What-chu gonna do now?[1]” Whether choking out a drunk[2] or stepping to sucker mcs[3], they don’t back out of situations in which they find […]
Alan W. King 