1) Dessa, “Bombs Away” / Singer, rapper, poet, essayist (and more), Dessa is one of our true Renaissance spirits living in the 21st century. The Twin Cities luminary is offering a monthly series of singles called “Ides,” and the latest is buzzy and mournful, made where defiance and vulnerability sit down for a staring contest.
2) Wild Pink, “A Billion Little Lights” / I gravitate toward the poetry of light and dark, obsidian canopies interrupted by stars and described by Ted Kooser and Tomas Transtromer and others. Wild Pink makes the music of dark and light. Not unlike—though distinct in its sound and charms—The War on Drugs, the band plays at the shimmering edge of heartland rock, finding heavenly possibility in the horizon line.
3) Ron Hansen, “Mariette in Ecstasy” / Hansen’s 1991 novel is a masterful reminder that fiction can explicitly be about religion without falling into a hundred possible pitfalls. Set in a convent in the early 20th century, it details the increasing strangeness of the title character—up to and including stigmata—with suitable drama while framing each scene in hushed, exquisite tones. Every chord is perfectly balanced, every moment both surprising and altogether natural.
4) Alex Dimitrov, “Love and Other Poems” / In the spiritual centerpiece of this collection—the “Love” part of the title—Dimitrov not only lists his many loves, but refreshes the affections of his readers. The passage which snared me reads “I love people. / I love people and my time away from them the most. / I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows. / I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song ...”
Reading Dimitrov in print led me to the Twitter account where he continues the poem 280 characters at a time. The “... and Other Poems” naturally exhibit more brevity, but dig into the same concepts and sentiments—that astonishment and love walk around every corner, just waiting to be noticed.
5) Hannah VanderHart, “Confederate Monument Removal” for The Boiler / My friend (and occasional editor) Hannah VanderHart delivers a soul-rubbed-raw dispatch from inside a world in which flags and monuments to the most lost of causes disturb whole families and trouble the soul’s waters. VanderHart soulfully shows how these symbols do not exist at a distance, but become form and language, instruments of embodied trauma.
Either way, I see that the flag has different effects on our physical bodies. It is, in fact, triggering to me, while it makes my mother protective and defensive—defensive of a flag she did not birth, against her daughter, whom she did. The massive interstate flag and my mother have taught me more about symbol than any definition from a text on poetry’s form.
Flags begin to fill my poetry—I cannot keep them out.