Amidst numerous up-and-coming open mics in Rhode Island, the Providence Poetry Slam (ProvSlam) remains one of the largest and longest-running slams in US history. Co-founded in 1992 by nationally renowned author and slam poet Patricia Smith, ProvSlam is an undeniable example of how Blackness is an integral part of Providence’s lavish history. Over recent years, […]
Synesthesia First date/ Boy tells girl she is strawberries and mint and/ Sometimesmusic tastes bad/ His brother doesn’t know he is oranges/ The datecontinues point and tell/ What does the bartender taste like?/ Thecouch?/ Elvis?/ Madonna?/ She only doubts when he says Cher iscotton candy/ And purple is bubble gum/ She asks if citrus runs […]
“I saw a dead body today.” You’re trying to fit two fingers into the plastic mouth of a bottle. At the bottom, crusted with orange sugar, the last of the Vitamin-C gummy chews. You need those two gummies like Catholics need forgiveness. It’s dark all the time and work lets out later and later now […]
We are proud to be Indigenous to this land, As the desert is a desert with its sand. We are not from India, you named us wrong, Indigenous to this area, we’re Narragansett strong. We walk with you day by day unnoticed, because of the stereotypical looks, of what you learn in your books. We […]
1. HER WEB It looks like a wheel of diamonds you said. My eyes moved to the corner of the porch where you had noticed the spider, bigger than any I’d ever seen, finishing a hoop of her web. A barn spider, an orb weaver, you said. Harmless to us, despite the look of her, […]
Crossing over the desert brow spare ranges, sparse rivers I see the red lights south & how softly they wave their fingers Who are all these places we call home? Do all our roots have voices we can simply call or cut off? The pecan tree coughs fruit onto to the ground, mockingbirds sing for […]
“I never believed something, / or somebody, could hold me,” writes Sarah Kersey in the title poem of their debut collection, Residence Time (Newfound, Oct 2024). They hope the biblical Moses will offer them wisdom on his adoptive mother, even as the sea rises. Instead, Kersey teaches themselves to swim: “I finally learned to float.” […]
You shipped them: Mulder and Scully. Some spooky guy hot for aliens, hair flopping tantrums at a bald FBI father figure. Too punk rock for paperwork, he rendezvoused in soft lit parking garages with strangers. She filed the official reports on slick gray creatures, straight-faced in her blazer. Snapped latex glove above autopsy table. Scalpelled […]
Summertime on the stoopat Grandma’s,with my cousins,laughing whilethe ice cream truckmusic blared.Get three cones and a chocolateéclair.Sometimes,we spent the whole daysitting on those stairs.Grandma in the living room,watching Telemundo.Bachata musicplaying outfrom the second floor.Pooling all our money togetherfor some munchies.Someone,take a walk with meto the corner store.Piling in the car,now we’re headingto the beach.Ice in […]
“Spokenword” poetry, an art form steeped in tradition and innovation, has woven its way through the annals of history, echoing the voices of griots, resonating in the streets of Harlem, and pulsating through the beats of rebellious hearts. From its origins in African oral tradition to its modern manifestations in the poetry scene of Providence, […]