The following five poems were written by poets I deeply admire: Adam J. Gellings, Faisal Mohyuddin, Abby E. Murray, Nicole Santalucia, and Leah Umansky. I admire these poets because of their work, but also because they are warm, empathetic, kind, and genuine on the page and off.
1) “Prompt” by Adam J. Gellings
Adam J. Gellings doesn’t write poems so much as he partitions arrondissements of feeling on the page. Reading his work feels to me like being inside a Jim Jarmusch movie or a René Char poem. Listen to Adam read his poem, “Prompt,” and read the text here.
2) “Allah Castles” by Faisal Mohyuddin
There’s a gentle ferocity at the heart of Faisal Mohyuddin’s poetry, wildly spiritual, but grounded in the quotidian. The poem, “Allah Castles” is one of the great contemporary examples of a father-son poem; it’s also ecstatically mystical in the manner of John Donne and Rumi. Read “Allah Castles” here. Listen to Faisal talk to Ashley M. Jones about the poem here.
3) “Motherhood for Beginners” by Abby E. Murray
Abby E. Murray’s poetry continually seeks to define the self against the messiness of everyday life. Murray’s is a poetry of paradox and provocation, brilliantly imaginative, and exquisite in its use of language and in its intuitive movements. Listen to Abby read her poem, “Motherhood for Beginners,” and read the text here.
4) “Dear John Ashbery” by Nicole Santalucia
Nicole Santalucia’s vocation as a poet is to astonish. She’s the only contemporary American poet whose work makes me laugh out loud consistently. She’s also working on a series of poems that engage John Ashbery’s ouevre with the seriousness and the playfulness it deserves. Read Nicole’s newest “Dear John Ashbery” poem here.
5) "Unleashed" by Leah Umansky
Like John Ashbery, Leah Umansky doesn’t write about experiences. She writes out of them. Her poems shock me with their strange familiarity, their rhetorical acrobatics, their ability to resist the intelligence almost successfully. Hers is the contemporary poetry that embodies most for me the lines of Emily Dickinson: “Inebriate of air — am I — / And Debauchee of Dew —.” Read Leah’s poem, “Unleashed,” here.