Poetry

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The difference between full and flood is a drop…

a photo of KTM holding up a copy of "witness: poems to address the past, present, an future of policing."
a photo of the back cover of "witness: poems to address the past, present, and future of policing" featuring a list of contributing poets: Kauakanilehua Māhoe Adams, D. R. Bernstrom, Fong Li Blessing, Ty Chapman, Kinsale Drake, Margarita Engle, Amanda Gorman, Ronald Greer, Nikki Grimes, Carolyn Holbrook, Kari Anne Holt, Douglas Kearney, Tae Keller, Erin Entrada Kelly, Halee Kirkwood, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Ada Limón, Mariama J. Lockington, W. J. Lofton, Kyle Carrero Lopez, Kekla Magoon, Kyle Tran Myhre, Alice Paige, Junauda Petrus, Bao Phi, Jason Reynolds, Karuna Riazi, Laura Ruby, Aida Salazar, Hannah V. Sawyerr, Ollie Schminkey, Taiwana Shambley, Sun Yung Shin, Danez Smith, Ari Tison, Padma Venkatraman, Jasmine Warga, Kao Kalia Yang

Here is the Bookshop link; it’s available to pre-order before the release on 9/1/26.

I’m in this new anthology (edited by the incredible Ari Tison and Ty Chapman, featuring art by Damon Davis) …but I would be recommending it even if I weren’t. It’s kind of a wild elevator pitch, especially for me and the kind of people who are usually interested in my work. Imagine three bubbles in a venn diagram:

  • The lineup: this anthology features big names like Amanda Gorman, Ada Limón, Danez Smith, and Jason Reynolds, alongside locals and personal favorites like Junauda Petrus, Ollie Schminkey, Bao Phi, Kao Kalia Yang, and so many more. The lineup in-and-of-itself would be enough reason to check this out.
  • The theme: “poems to address the past, present, and future of policing,” a topic I’ve written about a lot (like here, and here, and here, and here, and even stuff I wrote nearly 20 years ago like this). My poem in the anthology is something new, though.
  • The anthology also has a YA (young adult) focus – which I think is a really good match with poetry—not just for young adult readers specifically, but for anyone who is curious about (or maybe even a little intimidated by) poetry. The work here is approachable, powerful, visionary, and sometimes even fun, in the midst of this very heavy and important topic. And the visual art is gorgeous and evocative. Even if you DON’T think of yourself as a poetry fan, I’d recommend this one.

And whether or not you like poetry, I also hope abolitionists check this out. In this work, culture matters. Story, art, expression, vision, coolness, and invitation all matter—and this anthology is overflowing with all that.

A Few Early Reviews

“The collection’s greatest strength lies in its multiplicity. The complex realities of anger, grief, exhaustion, tenderness, humor, and hope coexist without diminishing one another.” – starred, Kirkus Reviews

“Though often disquieting, in giving voice to the sometimes voiceless and providing space to consider their troubling subjects, the poems offer hope for a better future.” – Booklist

“For those seeking poetry of protest and resistance, this intense compilation offers fruitful fare. . . . Art and verse offer potent opportunities for reflection upon the social forces that influence American policing, as well as the deep anguish of the vulnerable citizens most at risk.” – starred, School Library Journal

Release Event – 9/1/26 in Minneapolis

Join us for the release event: Tuesday, September 1 at New City Center (3104 16th Ave S, MPLS), 7pm.

The event will feature Danez Smith, Carolyn Holbrook, Ollie Schminkey, Halee Kirkwood, Alice Paige, and me, as well as the editors. Here’s the flyer and some more info.

a promotional image for the launch of the "Witness" anthology - 9/01/26 at 7pm at New City Center, Minneapolis. Image features artistic representation of a collage of Black and Brown faces, by Damon Davis

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A few resources for creative writers on how to get our work seen and heard; download here.

I owe everything I have to community, so I try to share everything I have with community. Here is one offering: a 33-page e-book sharing resources, links, and food-for-thought for aspiring creative writers (especially poets, but there’s plenty stuff in the document relevant to fiction writers, songwriters, and others too).

It’s free; I just ask that people subscribe to my newsletter (which is also free, and I only send out updates every few months).

I say this multiple times in the document itself, but it’s worth repeating: I am not an expert, and the question “how do I make a living as a writer” simply does not have one easy answer. What has worked for me may not work for you! We’re all very different, with different access to resources, privilege and opportunities, relationships to our writing, short-term goals, and long-term dreams.

All that being said, I have TRIED to gather together a bunch of useful resources related to publishing, getting gigs, making money, promoting ourselves, etc. It used to just be a big googledoc that I shared with students or peers who had questions, but it’s nice to have a more readily-shareable version. Contents:

• Community As An End, Not Just A Means To An End
• Getting Poems Published: Journals, Lit Mags, Etc.
• Getting Books Published: Agents, Publishers, Etc.
• A Few Notes on Self-Publishing
• Getting Gigs: Booking, Touring, Etc.
• Social Media And Self-Promotion
• Making a Living + Defining Success For Ourselves
• BONUS section: A Few Design Tips
• BONUS section: Resources on Writing Your Bio
• Conclusion: If I Were Starting from Scratch…

Again: it’s all free. I just ask that people subscribe to my (also free) newsletter here to access the link. But please feel free to share with any creative writers in your life.

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Note: I could imagine a world in which this is an ongoing series, but we’ll see. For now, I just threw this together as an IG post during a free moment, and this post is a transcription for people who prefer to read it here rather than there.

A cropped version of the album cover for Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love featuring just a shoe and some hair, plus the text “pop music & poetry: a few discussion questions and writing prompts inspired by Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love”

I know a lot of teachers and teaching artists who like to incorporate pop music into their poetry units. And this album has SO MUCH going on that makes it perfect for that kind of work. And not just creative writing—I could imagine some of these questions/prompts being relevant in health classes, healthy relationships workshops, etc. Here are a few notes, discussion questions, and writing prompts.

What makes a lyric feel real?

At least part of it, for me, is the use of images:

  • pressed up in the bathroom line
  • heart made of wax / melting in the sun
  • hop the fence in the park
  • everything feels moldy like the fruit that’s in my fridge

We sometimes think people can only relate to our writing if we keep it vague, so they can map their experience onto ours. But I think it’s actually the opposite: A song that is just about “love” or “loss” in grand, abstract terms will usually not feel as real as a song that zooms in using these kinds of images, memories, scenes.

The smallest moments on an album can make its biggest ideas come to life. What others stick out to you?

Continue reading “pop music & poetry: Olivia Rodrigo’s “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love””

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SECRET RIVERS is me on vocals, and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE on both vocals and production. We’ve both been around forever, but this duo project is something new. Beyond that, we both live in the Twin Cities. Spring Is Coming is our first release as a duo, and it is very much about where we live, and about this moment: a season of occupation and brutality, but also a season of resistance and solidarity.

This release is also a fundraiser, with all proceeds going to the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Twin Cities ICE Relief Fund. UPDATE: as NHN transitions their efforts, any money coming in from this project will now go to the Family Housing Fund. Listen and/or download here:

My own writing has been the furthest thing from my mind these past few months, but spite and stubbornness can work as fuel as much as anything else. A couple quick notes on my contributions to this project:

  • Worthy of the Stone: We wrote this song in the Fall of 2025 over an instrumental track from the TV show Andor (the beat that plays when Mon Mothma spins around in circles). We liked the song too much for it to be a mixtape-style throwaway track, so SMP remixed it with an original beat. You can still find us performing the original version here, though.
  • One Does Not Simply Walk Into Minnesota actually started out as a remix of a very old Guante & Big Cats song, A Pragmatist’s Guide to Revolution. While re-recording the vocals, though, I decided to rewrite a few lines, which turned into rewriting basically the whole song. This one better reflects where I am right now.
  • Let Your Heart Be a Whistle is something I wrote back in December of 2025. The audio is pulled from a live performance at an UNIDOS fundraiser at the Loft Literary Center here in MPLS.

Book us for your mutual aid fundraiser, benefit show, or other event – contact me here.

Continue reading “Secret Rivers: SPRING IS COMING (new music + virtual release show)”

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In early February 2026, I invited Minnesota poets Ollie Schminkey, Isha Camara, and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE to this asynchronous panel discussion and performance, sharing poems related to the ongoing federal occupation of Minnesota, as well as some insight into what makes political poems “work.” Here is the FULL VIDEO, with some additional notes below.

Here is an MP3 audio file, if you prefer to listen, podcast-style (right-click and “save link as”)

Music by SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE.

This video is also a fundraiser: If this is valuable to you, we’re asking people to consider supporting CTUL (Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha)’s emergency & rapid response fund.

The idea behind this event was (1) an excuse to keep sharing that CTUL fundraiser; (2) a cool poetry event people could watch on their own time, from home (especially when so many are minimizing trips outside; we want to be in community with you too); and (3) a kind of counterpoint to my last big virtual event, where we focused on what artists can do beyond our art. That’s still an important conversation, but I wanted to also make time to dive into the art too, especially since I’m in community with so many poets, songwriters, and other creative people.

This conversation is about sharing—aside from some great poems—specific tools and tactics for other people who do creative communication work. I got to “talk shop” with three artists I respect, and I think we uncovered some really valuable insights about what works when we choose to speak out.

I totally understand if this video doesn’t get a ton of views or find a mass audience; it is two hours long, after all. But my hope is that it can be useful to YOU. Watch it in chunks over your lunchbreaks, or listen to the audio during a long drive, or even just read the “short version” aka this bank of pullquotes.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Continue reading “Poetry Against ICE (full performance and panel discussion)”

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Find even more resources for creative troublemakers here.

A difficult title: I started simply wanting to collect “anti-ICE” poems, but obviously that kind of negative focus potentially limits the collection in terms of tone and substance. So this is something a little more broad. AS WITH ANY LIST, this is absolutely incomplete; it’s just a handful of poems (with a particular emphasis on spoken word and performance videos) that I’ve come across in my work and that I’d consider using in education/advocacy settings.

Same idea with my lists on Palestine poems, consent poems, whiteness poems, and various other lists here – these lists are “snapshots” of a much larger range of work that engage with an issue in a compelling way. If nothing else, I’m just setting up this page for myself, so I can have a quick reference when I want to find these poems. But if they can be useful to you too, even better!

As the situation here in MN develops; a few local voices:

Once again, I’ll just reiterate that this list is woefully incomplete, just a snapshot of the incredible work being done right now by poets, writers, and other culture workers. Let’s keep adding to this list, both in a literal sense and a figurative one.

a square image with the text "poetry playlist: immigration, movement, and a future without borders

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***Edit (Feb 17, 2026): there’s a video of me performing this poem at a Monarca fundraiser here. The audio pulled from that performance is also one of the tracks on our fundraiser EP, Spring Is Coming.

New poem, plus a few related links:

Full text of the new poem is below. Thanks for reading. It goes without saying that poetry is not enough in this moment. But I would push us all (myself included) to take up space IN poetry/art spaces, bring these conversations anywhere they aren’t already happening, and continue trying to shape/shift the narrative. In this context of this call for more anti-ICE poetry, music, visual art, and beyond, the key line in this poem is probably “the call is not to say something perfect; it is to make noise.”

Continue reading ““Discourse” + a call for more anti-ICE art”

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As a teaching artist, I’ve facilitated countless workshops, classes, and conversations on the topic of what art and artists have to offer in times of crisis. What can it mean to “meet the moment?” What kind of work can a poem do, and what can’t it do? For those of us who already consider ourselves creative writers, what kinds of tools and tactics are most effective when it comes to speaking out about the causes that matter to us? And for those of us who don’t think of ourselves as artists, what can we learn from how artists approach these issues?

I do not believe there are easy answers, but in my experience, there is immense value in grappling with these kinds of guiding questions. Meeting the Moment: Political Poetry and the Anthemic Impulse is an asynchronous workshop experience where I share everything I’ve learned from these conversations: examples, frameworks, writing prompts, tactics, resources, and more.

Because I don’t believe that art is ever going to be enough to get us to the world that we want to live in. But I also do not see us getting to that world without it—without some kind of cultural strategy, without narrative work, without artists.

a photo of KTM performing, plus a green vine emerging from his back.
Continue reading “Meeting the Moment: Political Poetry and the Anthemic Impulse (New Workshop!)”

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I don’t have time/energy right now to share very much commentary; hopefully people are aware of the news here in Minnesota. Our No Kings rally went forward, and even with authorities telling people not to gather, thousands of people showed up. I shared a poem.

Actually wrote and memorized it last week, but because it ended up being about grief, how we carry it, and what we might do with it, it felt appropriate to share today too. Full text below, for the folks who have been asking for it.

ALSO: please check out the latest post in my FREE email newsletter: What’s next? Things to do after a big march

a photo of KTM/Guante performing at the No Kings St. Paul protest, wearing a shirt that says "believe trans kids"
Continue reading ““no kings, all bricks””