Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s annual Miami Book Fair preview. These video poems are each read by a woman-identifying writer who is attending Miami Book Fair 2024. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair and SWWIM. We look forward to seeing you at the Fair!
Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2024: Diannely Antigua, Sunday, 11/24/2024, 2 pm, Room 8303, and Sunday, 11/24/2024, 4 pm, Room 8303
Transcript of poem I want to write about joy—I decide this when I sit down at my desk, the overwatered succulents lining the perimeter. I don’t understand the ratio of plant to water to dirt, so I drown them in what I think is needed. I forget sun. I forget patience. I try to forget the look death makes— the Haworthia, the snake plant, my grandmother, the dog. I wanted to write about joy. Everything is pale. Outside, winter persists, even though it’s May. A lover once told me he believed in the risk of joy, used it to explain away the kiss on my neck. He’s married now, the risk of joy tattooed on the right side of his own neck, his new wife’s name on the left. My friend said I dodged a bullet with that one, I say I would’ve opened my chest to it.
Diannely Antigua (she/her) is a Dominican American poet and educator born and raised in Massachusetts. Her debut collection, Ugly Music, won a 2020 Whiting Award and the Pamet River Prize. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, where she was awarded a Global Research Initiative Fellowship to Florence, Italy. She was a finalist for the 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship and the winner of fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and the Academy of American Poets. Her work has appeared in the Best of the Net Anthology and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, NH, and is the youngest and first person of color to hold the title. As host of the Bread & Poetry podcast, she aims to make poetry more accessible to the community, interviewing poets and non-poets alike about what poetry means to them.
"Wanting" from Good Monster, copyright 2024 by Diannely Antigua, used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org.
12/12 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Nicole Cooley + local writer Caroline Cabrera / The Gallery at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
One workshop remains in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here). Price: $80/workshop. Time: 7:00–9:00 PM (EST). Where: Zoom.
Note: SWWIM Every Day is now accepting poetry translations for publication consideration. Please see swwim.org/submit for the full guidelines.
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Amazing!! I just ordered this book! Thank you for introducing me to her work.