FLATLINE POETRY

Founded on the belief that poetry is stronger in community, Flatline Poetry is a group of four poets who seek to "create a new heartbeat" with every performance and workshop. Guillermo Caballero, Lewis Morris, Kaleigh O’Keefe, and Lissa Piercy were...

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This Sunday, Lewis M. will be interviewed on Café con Cass on Cambridge Community Television, where he’ll be premiering his new single, Bleed.  Tune in to get a peak before it's officially released this Tuesday. #ThatNewViolence

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Q & A with Lissa P.

Kaleigh and Lewis headed off to my alma matter, Landmark College, last week to judge a poetry slam and perform. I was super sad to miss the show, so we came up with a plan to get me involved: Kaleigh & Lewis asked the audience for questions, and I promised to write a blog post in response! 

There were a bunch of great poetry related questions that Kaleigh and Lewis answered while at Landmark, and we’ll post separately on those. For now, I wanted to take some time to answer these two questions addressed to me. Landmark students, THANK YOU for taking part in the show (and for your great questions). I cannot wait to see you when Flatline comes out to Landmark in September! 

1) What were some of the hardest things you got through, and what were some of your biggest successes? 

Easily the most challenging time in my life was when I lost my father to cancer. He died on December 1st, 2008, and during the 2.5 year span surrounding his death, I lost a total of seven people who were extremely close to me. Those years also happened to be my first years of college, which (as a student who already struggled with ADHD / executive functioning issues) made college a HUGE obstacle. People kept saying to me, “you’ll be fine once you get that degree”. The problem was, “getting that degree” seemed like an insurmountable task during many moments. I’ll never forget showing up on Landmark College’s campus and feeling this HUGE relief. Everyone around me understood how my brain worked, and had faced many of the same challenges I had faced while trying to learn in a system that wasn’t set up for individuals who learn differently like we do. 

My biggest challenges lead to my greatest successes (a sentiment I have heard repeated by many others I’ve spoken to). My academic challenges in college lead me to Landmark, where I was the first female to graduate with a 4.0 GPA. My losses lead me to poetry. 

I honestly don’t think I would be a spoken word poet today had I not lost so many important people in my life. It’s the pain of all of those losses that gave me material to write about, and made me better able to empathize with others going through loss and struggle. 

2) What was your favorite thing about Landmark?

The community! The week I arrived at Landmark, everyone was meeting and asking one another, “What’s your LD? How’d you end up here?” We connected right away because we had all struggled in school for one reason or another. It wasn’t until months after Landmark that I realized, “my friends from Landmark know things about me that other people I’ve known for years have never heard”. At Landmark, there was a sense of safety when talking about our struggles. We all shared the most intimate parts of our story with one another, which created a community of support and care that I will never forget. 

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One day... when I was a freshman at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, I was riding the elevator up to the library from the lobby. An old white lady got in the elevator on the 3rd floor. She seemed legitimately shocked to see me. She stood at the other side as far from me as possible. I was nearest to the buttons, so I asked her which floor she needs. She said "9". So, I pressed "9".

This lady seemed determined to say something to me. I could tell by the way she kept looking at me, then looking away when I return her gaze. Finally at around the 6th floor, she turned to me, smiled, and said, "Do you know where you are?"... I almost laughed, I was so shocked. At this point, she tried to justify her statement by saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "Because, y'know... Some folks from nearby neighborhoods (i.e. the housing project right near MassArt aka The Ghetto) come in, pretend to be students, steal stuff... Do you have a student ID".... I point to my lanyard and the ID dangling from it.

We reached the 9th floor. A look of silent relief slithered onto her face as she stepped out, never looking back, head down. I used see her every so often. She would wave. I'd always wave back... smiling... knowing deep down that because I'm a black male, I have to swallow my anger, and bitterness, and resentment or else I'll end up being the nigga she assumed I might be.

"7:30am" is dedicated every student of color at MassArt or ANY college that has had to swallow that anger knowing that it's poison. I see you, and I'm with you. Tell your story. Open it up. And, never allow yourself to be silenced like I was silenced. - Lewis Morris

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International Women's Day

My poem "International Women's Day" aired on Boulder's KGNU radio yesterday in honor of the holiday! So thankful to Maeve for an awesome interview (which will air next week) and for sharing my poem. 

After Flatline's first radio interview during TEDxVail, I quickly decided that I love radio interviews. There's something about meeting cool people (the interviewer, other people being interviewed before or after, people hanging out at the radio station at the time) that makes radio interviews such a great experience. Granted, the interviews I'm talking about are ones where I got the luxury of actually being in a studio being interviewed (rather than phoning in). 

I recently spoke to another poet about a radio interview they completed. That poet also really enjoyed doing a radio interview. As I reflected on why some poets might like radio interviews so much, I realized that rarely do I get to talk about my experience being a poet. When I show up for an open mic or a feature, I am often there to perform a poem (or a set of poems) and to listen. It is so fun to get to talk to people about WHY I write what I write, or what the process was to get me there.

In short: I love radio interviews :-) and there are other poets who do, too! 

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A suite of poems by Meaghan Ford, including "Trigger," "If," "Nineteen," "Where Your Name Is Not Monster," and "Dressing the One You Love for Burial." For NAILED.

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Here's The $7 Custom Poem I Just Bought In The Subway From A Poet Who Makes $700 A Week

Poet Lynn Gentry usually writes about 20 poems a day. Who says you can't support yourself with poetry?

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A great resource for writers!

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Free PDF Books on race, gender, sexuality, class, and culture

Found from various places online:The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire Angela Y. Davis - Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Y. Davis - Race, Women, and Class The Communist Manifesto - Marx and...

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Images are not quite ideas, they are stiller than that, with less implications outside themselves. And they are not myth, they do not have that explanatory power; they are nearer to pure story.  Nor are they always metaphors; they do not say this is that, they say this is.

Robert Hass, "Twentieth Century Pleasures" (via Flatline Poetry)

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I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson

Book Geek Quote #705

(via bookgeekconfessions)

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There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

Ernest Hemingway (via writingquotes)

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Good tips.  

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I’m drawn to writing in formally correct ways, using rhyme and strict, regular meter, but take considerable pleasure in violating those norms. I like to hear the sound of form, and I like to hear the sound of it breaking.

Frederick Seidel, The Art of Poetry No. 95 (via bostonpoetryslam)

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In some ways painters have been more important in my life than writers. Painters teach you how to see—a faculty that usually isn’t highly developed in poets. Whether you take a walk in the woods with a painter, or go to a museum with one, through them you notice shapes, colors, relationships that enhance your own seeing.

Carolyn Kizer, The Art of Poetry No. 81 (via bostonpoetryslam)

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Shedding no tears: Mark Doty talks about what makes a good poem

The first American to win England's prestigious T.S. Eliot prize, Mark Doty will be the national judge for this year's 47th Annual Dyer-Ives Poetry Contest.

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What's your favorite poetry prompt?

Send us prompts, and we'll post what we come up with.  Also, feel free to share what you wrote too!

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Poetry is art, which is philosophy — in other words, poetry is a way to think about the world, to process and move through reality, create reality, upend current realities, both personal and universal. And I write it because I have to.

Sarah Certa, interviewed for H_NGM_N (via bostonpoetryslam)