"A Pregnancy of One's Own" in New Delta Review

“A Pregnancy of One’s Own” is an essay I wrote about my personal story of reproductive justice, and it is now published in New Delta Review’s 12.2. Thank you to Erin Little and the editorial team for giving it space and company.

"This Is God in Her Guts" in Yes The Void

I am grateful to Edwin Fagel at Yes The Void for giving an online home to "This Is God in Her Guts," a poem of mine that was originally published in #Firebrand, a print anthology of White Stag Publishing. This time around, she's paired with a photo I took of Sloss Furnaces in 2012 when I routed through my hometown to return to New Orleans after spending a summer leading writing workshops for young women at Bryn Mawr. The study of red is long.

"10" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

It’s been two years since these poems spoke up in me and a year since QUARANTINE DAYBOOK launched from Bottlecap Press. Thank you for cheering it and me on. Here is “10,” a ghazal written on the fringes of Easter.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Forthcoming from Paris Heretics

I am very excited to announce that Loving Tallulah Bankhead, a collection of my Tallulah poems accompanied by illustrations from Lauren Patterson, is forthcoming from Paris Heretics. Here I am discussing the project with Jason Stoneking at La Fée Verte in March 2022.

Live Poetry Event in Tandem with Alison Grace Koehler's Stained Glass Show "De Verre en vers"

Pleased to be a part of this live poetry event that will feature work that responds to themes evoked in Alison Grace Kohler’s current show, “De Verre en vers.” I’m really looking forward to reading alongside Jamika Ajalon, Biba Ndiaye, Emily Ruck Keene, and Kristin Sanders and hearing a special bespoke text by Jason Stoneking! Join us this Friday, March 25th, at 19h at Espace Canopy (19 rue Pajol, 75018).

Now Available: Manuscript Consultations

I have missed interacting with and supporting writers "behind the scenes," so I am now offering manuscript consultations for a few time slots per month. With over 10 years of experience in literary editorship, I can help you recognize and focus the potential of your poems, prose, and hybrid compositions. More information about rates and packages is listed under “Editing” on my site. I look forward to hearing from you.

"3" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

Closing out 2021 and ringing in 2022 with a little at-home performance from Quarantine Daybook (Bottlecap Press 2021). Thank you for tuning in. A few more videos yet to come!

"15" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

In the coming weeks, I will be working on putting together a few performances and video poems of pieces from Quarantine Daybook. Here is “15,” recorded in May 2021 from my quarantine kitchen.

Featured Reader at Paris Lit Up

I’ll be reading from Quarantine Daybook on Thursday, July 22nd, as the featured artist at Paris Lit Up’s Open Mic night. Please come say hello, and, why not, sign up to share some of your own wordscapes!

QUARANTINE DAYBOOK Release

Quarantine Daybook is here, exactly a year after the strange spring that sighed it! I’m so delighted to share this work with you and look forward to hearing what you think—. If you’re in the U.S., you can order copies through the Bottlecap Press website. If you’re in France or Europe, you’ll soon be able to order directly from me and save yourself that fancy transatlantic shipping, so please write to me to reserve a copy.

I would like to thank you in advance for supporting my poetry! Once you have your copy, it would be beautiful to see a photo of it in your hands, by your face, at your desk, inside your sock drawer, beside your cat, among your high school trophies, up on the roof, along the windowsill, under your tangle of chargers, between the shower curtains, across your laundry pile, behind the coffeepot, atop your highest unreachable Tupperware, or next to the any anywhere that has been your trove or torment throughout the pages of your own quarantine.

A special shoutout to Baptiste de Chabaneix for being beside me in this project and in the cover design. Thank you, too, to Bottlecap Press Editor-in-Cheif Craig Mullins for believing in this collection.

"Here Is the Mark of the Girl" and "R-o-o-n-e-d" in Birdcoat Quarterly's Issue 4

"Rooned" was my word, was the pit of girlhood, styled with my native Southern moan. And it was a tongue pushed out of me, a voice to disinherit, in order to put on more romantic tellings. These two poems give some context to my unconventional spelling of “ruined” and offer story to a girlhood stressed with foregoing the native curiosity and wildernesses of a child in order to form her into a “Christian lady.”

Thank you to Editor-in-Chief Anna Sandy-Elrod and Poetry Editor Shannon Finck of Birdcoat Quarterly for giving these pieces some family in Issue 4. Read the whole issue here.

"Quarantine Daybook #7" in The West Review

I am wonderfully pleased to share the publication of "Quarantine Daybook #7." I would like to extend thanks to Jericho Brown for the inspiration of his invented form, the duplex (which combines ideas from the sonnet, the blues, and the ghazal). I quite enjoyed experimenting with this structure (though I cut some corners with the syllabics) in the strange domestic lab of lockdown. I am grateful to Despy Boutris, Editor-in-Chief, and Marissa Ahmadkhani, Assistant Editor, of The West Review, for giving my poem online family in Issue 3. Thank you for reading!

"Quarantine Daybook #6" in Sporklet 13 from Spork Press

April 2020 was a brief moment of fantasy and clarity for me in the unfolding hardships of the global pandemic. My home, my satellite, was at once shelter and maze, where I could lavish and languish in confrontations with a diminishing circuit. During this crystalline month, I was writing a poem a day with a dear group of bards. The Quarantine Daybook poems became my entries, my rhythm, my therapy, and I am happy now to have documented this period of looking out in wonder and horror through the lens of a domestic I’d never known.

I am pleased to share the publication of “Quarantine Daybook #6” in Sporklet 13 . Thank you to Guest Editor David Welch for including it. I hope you’ll read the full issue and discover work from Erin Adair-Hodges, Sara Afshar, Threa Almontaser, Jaswinder Bolina, Jen Frantz, Jeremy Allan Hawkins, Luther Hughes, Evan Nicholls, Aaron Sanderberg, and Katie Jean Shinkle. Also, check out the cover art erasure poem and illustration from Avni Vyas.

If you’d like to support Sporklet and Spork Press, you can purchase a PDF copy of the entire issue here for $1.

Presenting Sundog Lit's Issue 17 Poets

I am proud to celebrate Sundog Lit's Issue 17 Poets: Ayesha Asad, Taylor Byas, Marisa P. Clark, Stephanie Yue Duhem, Elizabeth Galoozis, Christopher Hewitt, Aimee Lowenstern, Kate Lucas, Matt Mitchell, Rachel Nix, Jennifer Popa, Khalisa Rae, and Ross White. Thank you ever to Assistant Poetry Editors Leela Chantrelle and Jennifer Huang for your energy, intelligence, and insight. The cover art of this edition, entitled "The Future is Queer and It's Magical," is a special GIF created by London-based visual artist Matilda Ellis. Visit our website to read these poets' poems and to see Ellis' piece in all its animated glory.

Interview with Em J Parsley of Juke Joint

I was so happy that Juke Joint asked me to sit down at my keyboard for an interview. Thank you so much to Assistant Editor Em J Parsley for the time they spent with my Tallulah poems. Having someone take a real curiosity in my work is such a gift, and I’m pleased to share our conversation with you.

Featured Poems in Juke Joint Magazine's Issue 10

Four of my Tallulah poems have been featured in Juke Joint Magazine’s Issue 10. This suite—three poems and a poem-play—is a collection that aims to speak to my quarrels with the white womanhood I was supposed to inherit. I am grateful to editors Dean Julius, Tory Rosen, Kora Schultz, and Em J Parsley for giving my work a home.

The issue is dedicated to Black Lives Matter, and a collection of anti-racist organizations and Black-owned bookstores are listed on their homepage.

"My Mother Defends Her Territory" Recorded for the Shelter in Magic Reading Series

“My Mother Defends Her Territory” is a video poem I recorded in Paris, France, for inclusion in the Shelter in Magic Reading Series, a project created by the Magic City Poetry Festival of Birmingham, Alabama. The Board invited writers with strong ties to "The Magic City" to record works so as to continue poetry despite the 2020's festival postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to Executive Director Ashley M. Jones and Program Coordinator Alina Stefanescu for including me.

GUEST HOST FOR COLLABORATIVE AFTERNOON/EVENING EVENT BETWEEN VERSE OF APRIL & MANDERLEY COLLECTIVE

I am honored to guest host –after Thoughts: On Literary Homage & Ancestry, an afternoon/evening of conversation with artists Fork Burke, Malik Ameer Crumpler, Jennifer Huang, Ashley M. Jones, Alison Grace Koehler, and Che Yeun. This online event is a collaboration between Verse of April and Manderley Collective. All who plan to attend must RSVP here in order to receive access information.

Semi-Finalist in Tupelo Press Dorset Prize

I was honored to have my manuscript, Rooned, mentioned as a semi-finalist in the Tupelo Press Dorset Prize! Congratulations to Meredith Stricker's re-wilding, winner, which judge Maggie Smith says "push[es] us toward connection and synthesis, towards all the meanwhiles in this life."

Guest at SpokenWord Paris, September 30, 2019

Please join me on Monday, September 30th at 8:30 pm with SpokenWord Paris Au Chat Noir (76 rue Jean Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris, Métro Parmentier or Couronnes) for a night in the key of “invocation.” Many thanks to Antonia Alexandra Klimenko for inviting me to take the stage. I can’t wait to share some new work with you and to hear what others will bring to the notion of calling on spirits, by whatever suit or spell.