Kyle Tran Myhre’s NOT A LOT OF REASONS TO SING, BUT ENOUGH (2022, Button Poetry) is a sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism.
Featuring poems, essays, theater elements, and Casper Pham‘s stunning visual art, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers.
Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it’s also a one-of-a-kind practitioners’ take on poetry, power, and possibility.
Get it now from Button Poetry, on Bookshop, or wherever you get your books!
- Poems and Excerpts:
- “Ten Responses to the Proposal To Overcome the Current Plague by Challenging It to a Duel” (Video and Text)
- “The Role of the Artist in Times of Authoritarian Brutality: A Panel Discussion” (Full chapter preview)
- “Poem for the First Day of the Poetry Unit in Language Arts Class” (Video and Text)
- “Hen March Outlaws Cops” (Video and Text)
- “A Hundred People Died on First Hill” (Video and Text)
- “Why Do You Write Poems When Death Is All Around Us?” (Video and Text)
- “To the Informants in the Audience Tonight” (Video + Text)
- “All the People I Want to Say ‘I Told You So’ to Are Dead (Video + Text)
- “All Advice is Bad Advice, Including the Advice that All Advice is Bad Advice” (Excerpt)
- Three poem/videos in this post:
- City of Heart
- All the Threads Between Us
- Wolves, They Said, Prayer-Like
- Interviews & Events:
- An hour-long preview show featuring some poems and notes on my process
- Back to the City MPLS interview (part one) + (part two)
- Interview on The Poetry Question podcast
- Interview on The Corner podcast
- Interview on The Poet Speaks podcast
- Interview on I Think Therefore I Slam podcast
- A back-and-forth dual interview with Ollie Schminkey about our books.
- List of links and resources from the book launch event.
REVIEWS AND COMMENTARY
- “A clear, fantastical, urgent excavation of the self and the crumbling pillars of the structures that surround us.” -Blythe Baird, author of If My Body Could Speak
- “[Tran Myhre] rattles, resists, and reimagines the reach and convention of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.” -Joseph Capehart, poet & educator
- “In these pages you will find artists and rebels and troublemakers, and they will break your heart wide open.” -Trung Le Nguyen, artist and author of The Magic Fish
- “Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough is aimed towards aspiring artists. It digs into the art they make, and how it can be used to tear down antiquated notions of supremacy and fascism… we should consider this book another tool to help artists tailor their art to help reimagine the world.” (Ali Elabbady, The Current)
- “Kyle Tran Myhre’s form-bending new book explores grief, community and resistance.” (Sheila Regan, MinnPost)
- “Like finding a journal on the side of the road [this book] shadows themes that question community safety, social justice and public health in an overtly personal and real context.” (Carly Quast, MN Daily)
- “Odd and extraordinary” (The Girl Who Reads review)
- “The distance created by the found fiction/quasi-epistolary sci-fi setting opens a door to exploring those topics in a way that feels cathartic rather than painful.” (Snap Book review)
- “Highly recommended if you care about social issues and are interested in influential art.” (Paper.Back.Reader review)
- “Imaginative and inspiring, structured brilliantly.” (Amanda Cino review)
- “Subtly weaves in lessons on poetry while touching upon so many of the issues we face in today’s society (but set in a futuristic dystopian society) all while adding strong threads of hope and positivity throughout.” (Lady in Read Writes review)
- “This is an incredibly accessible and inspiring read. It’s a book that encourages empathy and moves you to become a better person. It’s beautiful, it’s funny, and it features some of the coolest art by @marcheries. And it’s a book I return to when I feel hopeless about the world and want to feel alive again.” (VietGirlReads)
- “Delightfully Meta and sumptuously illustrated, Kyle Tran Myhre’s ephemera related to the imaginary robot Gyre is an example of a speculative framing that invites the reader into a world and won’t let them out again. I’m a sucker for graphic novels, and this is part graphic novel, part poetry collection, part Princess-Bride-esque adventure. The “memo” note at the beginning of the book does a fantastic job of setting up what the reader should expect from the poems. Unlike what is often the case in complex premises, the poems here do not suffer under too much explanation or too little context. If I could hold up an example of the contemporary speculative novella-in-verse, it would be this book, on par with such emblems as Sofia Samatar’s Monster Portraits. Button Poetry does not disappoint.” (Holly Lyn Walrath, Reading from the 2023 SFPA Elgin Award Nominees)
Praise for my previous book, A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry (2018, Button Poetry)
It’s riveting, it’s blunt, and trust me, you will be smarter when you finish this book than when you started.” -Neil Hilborn, author of Our Numbered Days
“A poignant critique of power, privilege, allyship, identity and more, A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry grounds the abstract concepts of social justice in heart wrenching narrative poetry and brilliantly insightful raps. Guante eloquently pulls his readers into the text exposing the humanity in themselves and others while maintaining a standard of accountability – for both himself and his audience. Generously loaded with commentary on his structure, process and pedagogy, this collection is arsenal, consider yourself weaponized.” -Tish Jones, poet and executive director of TruArtSpeaks
“A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry is more than just a book; it is an experience. To say every poem was welcoming would be a lie. To say it gave me hope would be another lie. It gave me fight. It gave me a set of nails, a hammer painted pink, and a dare to build something I always thought was impossible. Go! Get your hands dirty.” -Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of This Way to the Sugar