Wildly miraculous, Bucket List moment: my poem, “a little tenderness,” closes out the new issue of Poetry magazine.
This poem is perhaps the longest one in the new (yet-to-be picked up for publication) full-length poetry manuscript. It’s about a night out sophomore year of high school, of being fifteen and what it means to be on the precipice (of all things: brutal, beautiful, necessary, inevitable). And what does that kid continue to teach me now?
In an era where I’ve watched not just voices but personhoods flattened by the scourge of AI, I’m increasingly inclined toward the messy, flawed, jagged edges of being human. What unsettles and discomfits and knots my throat until I weep?
What a long-shot my entire writing life has been: from a kid who learned to read so late, still reads slowly and ploddingly, and continues to scandalize gatekeepers of the canon for my multihyphenations as an artist, for being able to make a room full of people stand on their feet with just my voice.
My endless gratitude to the incomparable Adrian Matejka, whose editorial sensibilities really leave me in awe (these poems you’ve platformed during your run!), Holly Amos, Iván Pérez, Jeremy Lybarger, Lindsey Garbutt, Angelica Flores, Whitney Hallberg, & and the entire team at the Poetry Foundation. Thank you for seeing my poem and giving it a home with you all. A dream, truly.
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