The Poetry Gods

Welcome to Episode 13 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to Camonghne Felix about growing up in The Bronx & how she got started writing poetry. Special Reminder: Episode 15 will be dedicated to clearing out our inbox, so please send us questions and comments, and we will shout you out on an episode. Email us at emailthepoetrygods@gmail.com. Special Reminder 2: We are looking to book shows for Fall 2016 & Winter 2017. Bring The Poetry gods to your campus! We would love to do a live show at your university! CAMONGHNE FELIX BIO: Camonghne Felix is a poet, political speechwriter and essayist. She earned an MA in Arts Politics at NYU, is a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee, and the 2013 recipient of the Cora Craig Award for Young Women. You can find her work in various spaces, including Youtube, and in publications like Apogee, Union Station, and Poetry Magazine. She is also the author of the chapbook Yolk, published via Penmanship Books in March 2015 and in May of that year was listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl From the Future You Should Know.” Follow Camonghne Felix on twitter: @KamoneFromPluto on instagram: @kamkilla Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 12 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to Safia Elhillo about her writing journey & much more. As always, you can reach us at emailthepoetrygods@gmail.com. We are looking to book shows for Fall 2016. Bring The Poetry gods to your campus! SAFIA ELHILLO BIO: Safia Elhillo’s first full-length collection, The January Children, is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in 2017. Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, a Cave Canem fellow and poetry editor at Kinfolks Quarterly: a journal of black expression, she received an MFA in poetry at the New School. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee, co-winner of the 2015 Brunel University African Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. In addition to appearing in several journals and anthologies including “The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop,” her work has been translated into Arabic and Greek. Safia has performed at venues such as TEDxNewYork, the South African State Theatre, the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway, and TV1’s Verses & Flow. She was a founding member of Slam NYU, the 2012 and 2013 national collegiate championship team, and was a three-time member and former coach of the DC Youth Slam Poetry team. She is currently a teaching artist with Split This Rock. Follow Safia Elhillo on twitter: @mafiasafia on instagram: @safiamafia Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 11 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we skip our usual segment of "What's on Your Mind?" to talk about names, phases, brands, publishing, & so much more with genius poet Morgan Parker. As always, you can reach us at emailthepoetrygods@gmail.com. We are looking to book shows for Fall 2016. Bring The Poetry gods to your campus! MORGAN PARKER BIO: Morgan Parker is the author of Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night (Switchback Books 2015), selected by Eileen Myles for the 2013 Gatewood Prize. Her second collection, There Are More Beautiful things than Beyonce, is forthcoming from Tin House Books in February 2017. Morgan received her Bachelors in Anthropology and Creative Writing from Columbia University and her MFA in Poetry from NYU. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in numerous publications, as well as anthologized in Why I Am Not A Painter (Argos Books), The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, and Best American Poetry 2016. Winner of a 2016 Pushcart Prize and a Cave Canem graduate fellow, Morgan lives with her dog Braeburn in Brooklyn, NY. She works as an Editor for Amazon Publishing's imprint Little A and Day One. She also teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University and co-curates the Poets With Attitude (PWA) reading series with Tommy Pico. With poet and performer Angel Nafis, she is The Other Black Girl Collective. She is a Sagittarius. Follow Morgan Parker on twitter: @morganapple on instagram: @morganapple0 Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 10 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk about language, whiteness, community, and much much more. This is part two of our conversation with genius poet, educator, organizer Mahogany L. Browne. If you missed part one, you should go back and catch up. As always, you can reach us at emailthepoetrygods@gmail.com. MAHOGANY L. BROWNE BIO: The Cave Canem and Poets House alumnae is the author of several books including Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada’s The Word and UK’s MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Manhattanville Review, Muzzle, Union Station Mag, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary, Joint & The Feminist Wire. She is anticipating the release of several poetry collections in 2015: Smudge (Button Poetry), Redbone (Willow Books) & the anthology The Break Beat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket). She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. Brown is also the publisher of Penmanship Books, the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and Friday Night Slam curator and currently an MFA Candidate for Writing & Activism at Pratt Institute. Follow Mahogany L. Browne on twitter & instagram: @mobrowne Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 9 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, José apologizes to Nas, & we talk extensively about community and creating space with genius poet & organizer Mahogany L. Browne. This is Part 1 of our conversation with Mahogany. We couldn't stop after just an hour, so look out for Part 2 dropping on July 5th. Shout out to the sponsors: Drake! Thank you for the OVO chains. Shouts to SquareSpace-- y'all are not an official sponsor yet, but we're trying to make it happen. Holler at us. As always, you can reach us at emailthepoetrygods@gmail.com. MAHOGANY L. BROWNE BIO: The Cave Canem and Poets House alumnae is the author of several books including Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada’s The Word and UK’s MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Manhattanville Review, Muzzle, Union Station Mag, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary, Joint & The Feminist Wire. She is anticipating the release of several poetry collections in 2015: Smudge (Button Poetry), Redbone (Willow Books) & the anthology The Break Beat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket). She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. Brown is also the publisher of Penmanship Books, the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and Friday Night Slam curator and currently an MFA Candidate for Writing & Activism at Pratt Institute. Follow Mahogany L. Browne on twitter & instagram: @mobrowne Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 8 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk about love poems (including of one of our favorite love poems: Matthew Olzmann's "Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised As A Love Poem"), being present, and we talk to incredible poet and educator, Jive Poetic about technology, how he got started writing poems, and we get some incredible stories about the poetry scene in New York City. JIVE POETIC BIO: Jive Poetic received his BA in Media Studies from The University of Buffalo before dedicating all of his time to good poems, classic hip-hop albums, clever t-shirts, blue pitbulls and bodega sandwiches. Jive is the co-founder of both JAM ON IT POETRY and THE SOUNDBITES POETRY FESTIVAL. Currently he is the host of the Open Slam at THE NUYORICAN POETS CAFE'. When JIVE POETIC is not on tour he leads poetry and hip-hop workshops in the New York City Public School system and in various community centers throughout the TRI-STATE area. Follow Jive Poetic on twitter & instagram: @jivepoetic Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 7 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, Aziza talks about her trip to Dubai, José is raspy (ask Aziza about what raspy means) & recovering from the flu, Jon talks about waiting for the Podcast to drop and we talk to Poet & Organizer, Nabila Lovelace about growing up in Queens, writing poems in New York and her journey to her MFA Program at the University of Alabama. NABILA LOVELACE BIO: is a born and raised Queens native, as well as a first generation American. Her parents hail from Trinidad and Tobago and Nigeria. She is a 2015 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop fellow, finalist for the Emerge-Be-Surface fellowship 2014, and a winner of the 2013 Poets & Writers Amy Award. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Washington Square Review, Day One, the Winter Tangerine Hands Up Don't Shoot edition & The Offing. She is a reader for both Union Station magazine and The Black Warrior Review. She is a current MFA candidate at the University of Alabama— Tuscaloosa. In her spare time she enjoys the warm weather by doing hoodrat things with her friends. Follow Nabila on twitter & instagram: @nabilas_here Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Chen for making our logo)

Welcome to Episode 6 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we introduce a new segment: Unpopular Opinions! What don't we like? Find out & get your Twitter fingers ready! we talk to poet, educator, and historian Paul Tran! ALSO: on Wednesday, May 10th, The Poetry Gods are hosting a reading by The Breakbeat Poets at Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop. If you're in NYC, come hang out with us: http://www.berlspoetry.com/events/2016/5/11/breakbeat-poets-reading-hosted-by-the-poetry-gods-featuring-readings-by-adam-falkner-mahogany-l-browne-idris-goodwin-jos-olivarez-aziza-barnes-nate-marshall-and-special-guests PAUL TRAN BIO: Paul Tran is a Vietnamese American historian and spoken word poet. He is currently the 10th ranked slam poet and top queer Asian American poet in the world. He won “Best Poet” and “Pushing the Art Forward” at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational and represented the Nuyorican Poets Cafe at the 2015 National Poetry Slam, which placed 9th overall. He has received awards and fellowships from Kundiman, the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop, the Asian American Literary Arts & Performance Festival, Poets House Emerging Poets, the Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging LGBTQ Voices, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, Home School Miami, the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the Imagining America Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Leadership Alliance & Office of the Senior Vice Provost at Harvard University, the Creative Arts Council & Dean of the College at Brown University, and the Brown-Tougaloo College Partnership. Follow Paul on twitter & instagram: @speakdeadly Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website!)

Welcome to Episode 5 of The Poetry Gods! This episode is brought to you by Robitussin & Vaporub. On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to poet, educator, and doctoral candidate, Joshua Bennett! We talk about Robert Kelly, mammalian solidarity, & more. JOSHUA BENNETT BIO: Joshua Bennett is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University. Winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series, his poems have been published or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, New England Review, the Kenyon Review and elsewhere. Penguin Books will publish Joshua’s first collection of poems, The Sobbing School, in 2016. Follow Joshua on twitter & instagram: @sirjoshbennett Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @jayohessee, @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR NEW WEBSITE: http://thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website!)

Welcome to Episode 4 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to the extraordinary Jeanann Verlee about social media, the struggle of leisure, & we have the return of Aziza's guide to dating 101 plus so much more! If you haven't seen the news, Book Riot featured The Poetry Gods on their list of 11 poetry podcasts for Poetry Lovers-- check it out https://bookriot.com/2016/04/11/11-podcasts-for-poetry-lovers/ JEANANN VERLEE'S BIO: JEANANN VERLEE is a performance poet, editor, and former punk rocker who collects tattoos and wears polka dots. She is author of two poetry collections: Said the Manic to the Muse and Racing Hummingbirds, which earned the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal in poetry. She has also been awarded the Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in failbetter, Rattle, Adroit, and PANK, among other journals, and anthologized in various publications, including Uncommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning and Living, The Courage Anthology: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls, and Looking for the Enemy: The Eternal Internal Gender Wars of Our Sisters Anthology. She was first runner-up for the Indiana Review Poetry Prize and has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Bettering American Poetry. Verlee worked as poetry editor for Union Station Magazine, For Some Time Now: Performance Poets of New York City, and Winter Tangerine Review: Fragments of Persephone, in addition to a number of individual collections. Follow us on social media: @azizabarnes, @iamjonsands, @jayohessee, @thepoetrygods Episode 5 with Joshua Bennett drops on April 26th!

Welcome to Episode 3 of The Poetry Gods! On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to poet, essayist, and relentless Ohioan Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib about The Revenant and why one would go on a date to go see The Passion Of The Christ, amongst other topics. We also debate the merits of the state of Wyoming. Sorry, Wyoming! We're sure you're wonderful. Follow The Poetry Gods on Twitter: @thepoetrygods ; @azizabarnes ; @iamjonsands ; @jayohessee. HANIF WILLIS-ABDURRAQIB'S BIO: Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is the editor of Again I Wait For This To Pull Apart, an anthology of poems relating to music, released by Freezeray Press in 2015. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism has been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, and The New York Times. He has been nominated for the pushcart prize, and his poem "Hestia" won the 2014 Capital University poetry prize. His first full length collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, is forthcoming in 2016 from Button Poetry / Exploding Pinecone Press. He is a Callaloo Creative Writing Fellow, an interviewer at Union Station Magazine, and a poetry editor at Muzzle Magazine. Additionally, he is a columnist at MTV News, where he writes about music, and fights to get Room Raiders back on the air. He thinks poems can change the world, but really wants to talk to you about music, sports, and sneakers. Follow Hanif on twitter at @nifmuhammad. Episode 4 drops on April 12th with Jeanann Verlee! Stay tuned!

Welcome to Episode 2 of The Poetry Gods! In this episode we talk to Jeremy Michael Clark about the worst performances we've ever done, tattoo ideas, vulnerability and more. If you like what you hear, please follow us on soundcloud, subscribe on iTunes, and follow us on Twitter. JEREMY MICHAEL CLARK BIO: Jeremy Clark is from Louisville, Kentucky. A Cave Canem Fellow, he is currently living in Newark, New Jersey, where he is an MFA candidate at Rutgers University. Follow Jeremy on Instagram: @jmichaelclark Follow The Poetry Gods on Twitter: @ThePoetryGods @AzizaBarnes @IAmJonSands @JayOhEssEe Episode 3 drops on March 29th with HANIF WILLIS-ABDURRAQIB!

Welcome to episode 1 of The Poetry Gods. In this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to poet Jayson P Smith about love, how to spit game, growing up the oldest child and more. If you like what you hear, please subscribe. Episode 2 coming soon featuring Jeremy Michael Clark. JAYSON P SMITH'S BIO: A 2014 Pushcart Prize Nominee & Callaloo fellow, Jayson's poems appear /are forthcoming in journals such as Day One, Twelfth House, The Rumpus, MUZZLE, & beyond. In addition to being an Urban Word NYC Mentor, Jayson is Poetry Editor at Union Station Magazine, co-curator for Poets in Unexpected Places & reader for The Atlas Review.