Hello… it’s me *adele voice*

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you...

Lovers & Friends, 

YO?! It’s been a minute (since February 1st specifically). We are 1/4ths done with the year (?!), & in those three months, so much has happened!

To folk who are new to this: hello! Thanks for joining my monthly(ish) journey. To folk who are true to this: I appreciate you for rocking with me regardless of my inconsistency lol. I’m coming to you with updates, thoughts, & a lesson plan based on something I may or may not have written. 

But first, KB updates!

• Celebrate #NationalPoetryMonth by ordering my debut full-length poetry collection, Freedom House. You can order one from Deep Vellum (it comes with a free ebook if you order here), or Bookwoman, or Black Pearl Books, or anywhere else you get books. When you preorder a book, it’s a clear message that Black, queer, trans, Texan stories matter (and it makes it so I can continue to publish books). I promise, the 1st best thing you can do for me as an author & person is preorder this book. <3 

• If you’re unsure about ordering Freedom House, don’t take my word for it. Ask Buzzfeed, or Feminist Book Club, or The Millions, or Black Walnut Books, or Lauren Oertel. They’ve all given it rave reviews :’) 

• The next best way you can support Freedom House is by requesting it at your local libraries & bookstores! It’s FREE & easy to do; the last thing I’d want is for people to not access my words due to money or regional inaccessibility. Please take these numbers & call up a library or bookstore today – Paperback ISBN: 9781646052639, Ebook ISBN: 9781646052844

• I’m going on an IRL & virtual tour !!! again !!! Check out my April/May dates & RSVP for a stop here. 

• Freedom House has a new publication date: June 6th. If you’ve already preordered it, 1) thank you & 2) expect them on this new date! 

• I’ve got some poems & a podcast interview out with Poetry Magazine now. For my non-poet friends: this is a big deal!

• Check out all my most recent interviews & reviews (yes, I finally updated my website) here. 

• Things in Texas as they pertain to anti-trans rhetoric are getting quite dicey. If you love me, can you please post about your support for the trans community, & follow Equality Texas for best ways to support trans Texans this month?

That’s all my updates (for now). Thanks for reading & supporting me!

Because so many of you expressed that y’all liked my last lesson plan, I’m sharing another one in this newsletter! Please feel free to bring this lesson to your classrooms, events, conferences, boxing rings, etc – even try it out yourself. This one especially would be great for populations of folks that are interested in writing about climate change, grief, governmental failure, and poetry form. The idea of people talking about poetry anywhere – especially during #NationalPoetryMonth – excites me! Anyway, I’m gonna stop talking now and give you this lesson.

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Teaching “Good Grief”

Link to text and audio: https://poets.org/poem/good-grief 

Link to video:

 

Synopsis: “Good Grief” is a poem I wrote after the heinous, entirely avoidable 2021 Winter Storm that left Texans without water and electricity for upwards of 6 days. It was the type of weather I – a person who's lived in Texas my whole life – had never seen before, and it displayed the incompetence of our state government (some of which attempted to take trips abroad and point fingers instead of tending to the mess they made). As expected, little to nothing has changed since the storm, and Texas stays vulnerable to climate catastrophe if and when it hits the state again. 

I first approached this piece like a journal entry– just detailing what I was seeing and feeling as it pertained to the week before, during, and after the storm. While searching for the form that this piece would take, I thought back to the first time I read and listened to Ocean Vuong’s “Not Even This” and knew this was the form for this piece. A list often gives its reader’s eye a deceptive simplicity, yet this poem is, for lack of better word, “all over the place”. This poem went on to win the 2022 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize with Academy of American Poets, and is featured in their yearly series, Dear Poet. 

Before Reading

Share content warnings for anti-Blackness, racism, climate catastrophe, and very light cursing. 

Have students make a list of things they depend on the electricity in their homes for. Then, have them make a list of things they depend on water for. Then, have them answer one of more of these questions: 

• What would you do if you couldn’t access these things for 2 days? 3? 

• Given your lists, do you think water and electricity is a basic human right? Why/why not?

• What incentive does the business/government have in deciding who does/doesn’t have these things? Does this change your answer to question 2?

I would suggest, also, that you have students read a bit on the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. A good source for this is the Texas Tribune.

After Reading

To spur conversation and reflection, start with three or more of these questions: 

• What are your initial reactions? What words or phrases stick out to you? 

• What does the poet have to say about grief? How long does grief stay with you?

• The poet uses the term “white” as a double entendre, invoking the Black tradition of signifying. What other meanings can white signify in this poem? How does this affect your reading of the poem?

• How does this poem make you feel? Why might that be?

• This poem uses references to proper names – specifically Frank Ocean and Christopher Columbus. What is the meaning behind these references? What do they add (or subtract) from the poem?

• Returning back to your lists, what does the poet do without these things? Why?

• What is still left to do– in the world– after this poem? What do you feel called to do?

If teaching a craft class, maybe create questions based on the poem’s use of form, rhyme, and/or punctuation. 

Prompt

Write a poem as if you have been left for one day in some place without water, or electricity, or both. Who is to blame? What is the sight, smell, touch, taste, feel of this experience? Say, also, that someone you love is also left in these same conditions somewhere else. What do you do/want to do about this? What do you want to say to the person/system that is to blame?

Alt prompt: write about a local climate catastrophe that you or someone you know lived through. 

Further Reading

Here are some poems that dive into similar topics as this poem:

• I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth - Fatima Asghar

• Poems about climate change to read right now 

• Poems about climate change 

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That’s all folks *bugs bunny voice*. I hope this newsletter is finding you somewhere warm, safe, on the brink of/during a vacation. I’m thinking of you as I look into this new month, in hopes that poems, people, and this precious thing we call life does right by us. Are you drinking enough water? Are you getting enough sleep? These are the things that I want for you, friend. These are the things your body/mind deserves.

Till next time!

Love, Peace, & Chicken Grease, 

KB