The Poetry Gods

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 [email protected]. 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 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 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 Season 2, Episode 8 of The Poetry Gods! We realized many of the poetry podcasts we listened to were wildly dull. Hyper self-serious, self-agrandizing, and totally exclusive to high academic circles. That’s not the way the three of us know or love poetry. It’s also not the way any of our homies and idols dig into this craft. Poets are fucking hilarious. Joyful and absurd, with stories for days. We hear them at the bar, during their banter at the reading. We wanted to hear it in a podcast. So we made one. On this episode of The Poetry Gods, we talk to John Manuel Arias about Costa Rica, writing a book, and much, much more. As always you can reach us at [email protected]. JOHN MANUEL ARIAS BIO: John Manuel Arias is a gay, first generation Costa Rican/Uruguayan poet and crepe-maker raised in a DC ghetto when it was the murder capital. His poems have appeared in the James Franco Review, Rogue Agent Journal, Red Paint Hill, the After Happy Hour Review and others. His debut collection of poetry, “¡I’D RATHER SINK–!” is forthcoming from Red Paint Hill Publishing. He currently lives in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts. Follow John Manuel Arias on Instagram : @latinfishdrama Follow The Poetry Gods on all social media: @_joseolivarez, @azizabarnes/ @azizabarneswriter (IG), @iamjonsands, @thepoetrygods & CHECK OUR WEBSITE: thepoetrygods.com/ (much thanks to José Ortiz for designing the website! shouts to Jess X Snow for making our logo)