Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators
In Winter 2007, a full-time college student broke 7 years of writer’s block by writing a new poem, generated while reading Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail for English homework at City College of San Francisco’s main campus library. His little poem led to filling a hardcover black notebook with a full rushing cascade of penned poetry. He named his notebook Crimson Stain. Oakland performance poet Dee Allen gives us Crimson Stain-a collection brimming with a plethora of divergent themes that re-ignited his long-lost passion for writing: Worldwide spread of blood diamonds from Africa, activism, real estate gentrification, homelessness, political prisoners, war, Islamophobia, dedication to a viceless life, love for underground culture, abuses from the police and much more.
Inside Out Egg by Robin LaMer Rahija
Inside Out Egg is an anxious collection of poems about finding love, beauty, and personhood on a media-soaked, consumerism-burned, hellscape of a planet.
Good Housekeeping by Bruce Whitacre
The contradictions of privilege and want, the dynamics of gay marriage, the joy of a good cocktail — all enter the mix as these 31 poems explore home, marriage, travel, war, sensuality, tea, and, yes, housekeeping. Selected as an Editor’s Pick by BookLife Reviews, Good Housekeeping includes “The Foldout Couch,” which was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Some poems have appeared in The Journal of American Poetry, The Mandarin Magazine, and World Literature Today, among other places.
VAGABOND CITY 