New Book Alert + Lots of Other Stuff
We’re just gonna hop right into it this month, since there’s a lot coming up this spring!
WHAT’S NEW
BREAD, BORDERS, & BELONGING
This Saturday at Open Book, I’ll be closing out PEN America’s Bread, Borders & Belonging by reading my poem “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Hope to see you there (and at other parts of the weekend, too! It’s an amazing lineup.)
https://pen.org/event/bread-borders-belonging/
BE GAY, DO CRIME: WHEN EXISTENCE IS RESISTANCE
These days, it feels more like do gay, be crime. Laws across the country continue to target LGBTQ+ people, and transgender people in particular, increasingly aiming to criminalize our bodies for simply existing in public space (playing sports, accessing healthcare, and flying on planes, just to name a few). This workshop will begin with a short lesson on the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people throughout history, and some of the ways in which our queer and trans ancestors have fought back and resisted. We’ll then read and chat about poems by modern LGBTQ+ poets that engage with queer resistance (both current and historical), and of course, we’ll write our own poems off of tailored prompts. You’ll have an opportunity to share what you’ve written if you’d like (or not, if you don’t like). Your rage, your grief, your love, and your laughter are all welcome here.
These Button 101s are wacky affordable-- hope to see you there!
https://buttonpoetry.com/product/button-up-poetry-101/
30 POEMS IN 30 DAYS
Celebrate National Poetry Month by writing 30 poems in 30 days, in this low-pressure, generative workshop designed to beat writer’s block, kick you out of ruts, and, most importantly, just get your words onto the page!
https://writers.com/course/30-poems-in-30-days
DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE BAD— AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
Hey, I wrote another book! This time, it’s a prompt book-- I combed through the entire Button catalog to date, and this book features over 65 Button authors, with a poem from each author reprinted and a tailored prompt to follow that’s inspired somehow by that poem.
This project was a ton of fun to put together, and I hope you enjoy writing with it! (And of course, as you write, I hope you are not afraid to be bad!)
PROMPT
Here’s a sneak peek into my new book, “Don’t Be Afraid to be Bad!”
POEM
I wrote this poem as part of my last course (whenever we write as a group in class, I write alongside my students). This is a type of form called a golden shovel, where you take a previously established line and incorporate it word by word into the endings of each line of your new poem.
PETE
Pete has been keeping me good company as we live through the terrors
OLLIE’S THOUGHT CORNER
think think think think….
I am trying to be careful about what I say on the internet these days, as we descend into an increasingly authoritarian regime, and as technology becomes more and more efficient at surveilling us at every turn. (Side note: I don’t say this to fearmonger or exaggerate-- the simple truth is that you probably have Flock cameras in your city that are tracking everyone’s license plates and feeding them into giant data pools that are reported to a number of agencies and companies. The Ring doorbells in your neighborhood absolutely can and will (if they haven’t already been) be used with AI for tracking of human beings. If you haven’t already, get rid of your Ring camera, and stop talking politics around your Alexa-- better yet, get rid of it altogether).
That being said, I am in constant conflict with myself these days. My integrity says to speak out. My vigilance says to protect myself and stay quiet. I find myself compromising both of these things on a daily basis, never quite feeling that I've acted the way I want to, and never quite feeling safe either.
I grew up in a household with a father that wasn’t quite a doomsday prepper, but who believed deeply in self sufficiency. I lived in a house with its own private well, its own propane tank, and 13 acres (with river access) where my dad would frequently hunt and fish for our own food. He was constantly planting things that would return: apple trees, raspberries, even cherries and plums. He often said to me that he was preparing my childhood home to be a place where you could live completely off the land; I don't think he ever fully achieved that, but it's something that actually brings me a lot of comfort during these days. It's nice to feel that in a house nestled in the woods, someone who loved me prepared for my future survival, even though he had no way of knowing what would come, even though he would die so early on into that survival.
I also grew up in a household where I heard frequent religious messages about the Mark of the Beast and the end times. Several of my relatives have believed deeply since far before the elections that when a business man was elected president, it would be the sign that the end times were upon us. Now, I'm no longer religious, but I can't help but feel there's some truth to this apocalyptic prediction-- if there ever was an Antichrist, I think he just might be a certain man who uses the wrong shade of spray tan. (“Thou shalt know him by his orange face,” sayeth the LORD.)
I never expected evil to come in a package of such buffoonery-- many other evil men in history have been charismatic, intelligent, and quite frankly, often kind of hot (anyone seen a picture of a younger Joseph Stalin?). I always thought that powerful bad men would need these things in order to trick half a country into going along with such bald-faced inhumane schemes, but it turns out all you really need is money.
Anyway, we can all see with our own eyes what's happening here, so I won't say more about it. What I will say is that there are many things about this moment that have surprised me, and what has surprised me most is not only the aesthetics of what’s going on, but how fundamentally wrong I was about what I would need to get through it (and it feels like it’s only the beginning).
I was always taught an individual message: have enough for yourself, and keep it to yourself. The path to survival is being as self-sustaining as possible. Need nothing, need no one. To be honest, I still feel this urge: the urge to hoard, to collect, to stockpile. (Ask the dried beans in my basement).
But one thing that the current moment (and many others before it, but particularly now) has shown me is that the most comforting times to me have been those shared in community. Moments where I have taken the emotional (and sometimes physical) risk of leaving the house, to find myself safe in a warm bar full of friends who I love, who love me. Every day I am bolstered by a friend's text, or a community member’s email. I am astounded by an act of kindness from a stranger or a neighbor. Of course, community looks different for everyone, and still in Minnesota (and across the country) there are people who genuinely need to hide in their homes. This little collection of paragraphs is not a prescription on how you might need to live your life, or to say that you should always choose people over solitude. It’s just to say that, in my imaginings of the apocalypse (or whatever you want to call this), I always pictured isolation. Now, I am learning that community is even more important when some folks need to stay hidden; after all, you need someone to drop off your groceries.
Fellow poet (and friend, I hope!) Kyle Tran Myhre once wrote, “Survival is not a fortress. It is a garden.” I've heard this moment referred to not just as “a marathon, not a sprint,” but as “a relay,” where we all just need to hold the baton and run for our leg of the race. Then we get to recover for a bit while someone else carries the burden. It will be our turn again, but we don't need to do everything all of the time. I'm practicing retraining my thinking and my nervous system, to find safety in community, not just in individual resources. (Alright, but I also bought a print road atlas of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, just in case . . .)
If there ever comes a time where I genuinely feel the need to leave my urban home, I know there is a house somewhere that my father built for me. I know there is a fishing hole, and an old plywood deer stand. I know that the raspberries fruit early that far north, and I know how to work the table saw in the pole barn. I know there is a big firepit with plenty of wood.
And I know that I would invite all of my friends to come with me.
Stay together & stay strong!
Love,
Ollie