In case you haven’t heard, poetry’s having a bit of a moment. Insta poets like the wildly successful Rupi Kaur have brought the once stale form to the masses, cultural icons such as Beyonce are working with groundbreaking young voices — she collaborated with British-Somalian poet Warsan Shire on her visual album, Lemonade, and in the UK, poetry book sales are at an all time high. Seemingly, at a time of intense political unrest — Brexit, Trump, horrific gun violence, rising far-right and changing social attitudes — the need for poetry is ever the more necessary. In recent years, a new wave of queer and feminist poets have revolutionised the literary genre, offering gut-wrenching poetry in the face of dire political circumstances. Dealing with themes of love, desire, race, illness, erasure, shame, loss but most of all, hope, these poets offer invariably tender and electrifying invocations to challenge the tired and oppressive conventions that keep us from experiencing the world to its fullest potential. We have one piece of advice for you this World Poetry Day: do yourself a favour and get acquainted.
Ocean Vuong
Born in Saigon, Vietnam before moving to Connecticut as a child, Ocean Vuong is one of most exciting and important voices on the contemporary poetry circuit. Winner of the 2018 TS Eliot Prize and author of the acclaimed collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds (2016), Vuong writes about queer desire, the body and personal transformation with near-spiritual grace and exquisite attention to detail. In his outstanding poem, “On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous” — which is also the name of his highly anticipated first novel due to be published this June — Vuong composes a contemporary epic, flittering with desperation, chaos and earth-shattering love: “Our heads haloed/with gnats & summer too early/to leave any marks./Your hand under my shirt as static/intensifies on the radio./Your other hand pointing/your daddy’s revolver/ to the sky. Stars falling one/by one in the cross hairs/ This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already here.”
Angel Nafis
If Brooklyn-based Angel Nafis isn’t on your radar yet, she needs to be. The author of BlackGirl Mansion and one half of the black feminist poetry duo, The Other Black Girl Collective with fellow poet Morgan Parker, Nafis is making waves internationally for her tender and honest poetry that offer glimmers of hope amid the mundanity of the everyday. Nafis takes us on soaring journeys through her energetic poems, frequently leading to celestial crescendos — as exemplified in her raw and relatable poem, Omen to get your ass up: “Here I am/ glad to be another loud mouth/ through an open window / exercising the right to be beloved.” Amen to that.
Sophie Collins
Fresh from releasing her first collection last year, Who is Mary Sue?, Sophie Collins is one of the most inventive and insightful poets on the UK lit scene. Frequently employing collage techniques and weaving in strands from fellow female writers including Rachel Cusk and Maggie Nelson, Collins manipulates language to question misogynist critiques of women’s writing. She resists the expectation that women’s writing must be confessional, while at the same time writing bruising, magical and memorable lines such as this: “Men stay away from the kitchens…while the women…initiate the flames into their small routines.” Her book of creative non-fiction, small white monkeys, further exemplifies her thoughtful and experimental approach to feminist writing, dealing with themes of shame, self-help and expression post-sexual assault.
Danez Smith
As the youngest winner of the Forward poetry prize last year, 29-year-old Danez Smith is a leading light in the contemporary American queer poetry scene. In Smith’s rousing, passionate poems, such as “dear white America” in which they (Smith goes by the pronoun they) fearlessly declare, “I do not trust the God you have given us… Take your God back,” Smith presents an unflinching vision of what it means to be marginalised in America. Carefully handling difficult topics including their HIV-positive diagnosis, police violence and race, Davis is not only an outstanding orator, but an eloquent and measured wordsmith, who understands the beauty and bravery of words in equal measure.
Rebecca Tamás
With her debut collection out this week, intriguingly titled WITCH, York-based poet Rebecca Tamás is a name to know. Her work artfully weaves earthy and visceral feminist expression with dark occult visions that delve into difficult topics — consent, pain, sexual expression, vulnerability. In her poem, “Joan of Arc”, from her earlier pamphlet, Savage, Tamás plays with expectations of the feminine, writing with brilliant bravado: “You are funny to ask if I’m a virgin/ because, of course, I fucked myself.” For Tamás, the goal is to infiltrate sanitised society with shock and splinters of bright, imperfect possibility.
World Poetry Day is 21 March 2019.