Saida Agostini's “let the dead in” Featured in Ms. Magazine
Saida Agostini's debut collection of poems receives a glowing recommendation from Ms. Magazine in three words: "Mythology, ancestry, triumph."
Popular American feminist megazine, Ms. Magazine, shouts out Saida Agostini's much raved about new collection of poems in a listicle posted on April 20th entitled "Poetry for the Rest of Us 2022." With three words, "Mythology, Ancestry, Triumph" Ms. places Agostini's let the dead in among recent poetry standouts like Salmas Sharif's Customs and Aurielle Marie's Gumbo Ya Ya. Ms. Magazine has a long history of supporting female-identifying artists and the editor's whole-hearted support for Agostini's latest is welcome and merited.
Saida Agostini’s first full-length poetry collection, let the dead in, is an exploration of the mythologies that seek to subjugate Black bodies, and the counter-stories that reject such subjugation. Audacious, sensual, and grieving, this work explores how Black women harness the fantastic to craft their own road to freedom. A journey across Guyana, London, and the United States, it is a meditation on black womanhood, queerness, the legacy of colonization, and pleasure. These poems craft a creation story fat with love, queerness, mermaids, and blackness.
Read a poem from let the dead in Here, watch her discuss ltdi Here, and order your copy Here
“On the Road, Columbia, South Carolina, Spring 1959” A Poem by Reuben Jackson
“There’s much said in what’s not said in Reuben Jackson’s poetry. His cleverly sparse style often convincingly veils the complexities of which he writes, just until the poet sharply corrects our deception.” Linda Stiles
Those deceptions Ms. Stiles refers to above often come from Reuben’s use of the child’s point of view. As a child, the narrator, and reader by proxy, is looking up at the absurdity of adult interests and actions with a renewed curiosity. The narrator misses the cut of the barber’s words when asked “aren’t you proud of being negro?” The narrator cannot reason why the neon lights of the roadside motel are fading in the rear-view window, and yet his father seemed once so confident…
New Poem by Reuben Jackson, “Radio Nights”
Radio Nights by Reuben Jackson ASP is proud to premier the new Reuben Jackson poem, “Radio Nights.” From Reuben: As I mentioned during the interview with Rose Solari, my childhood […]
Reuben Jackson Reads his Poem “Second Grade”
Reuben Jackson Reads “Second Grade” “Reuben Jackson’s poems are gateways to possible worlds. With the finesse of a real sleight-of-hand artist, he transforms the truly personal—hopes, dreams, desires—into universal memories.” Richard […]