Thread by @bogiperson

For #WorldPoetryDay I'd like to highlight three of my favorite contemporary poets who are NOT on Twitter / generally social media, because I feel they are at a disadvantage when it comes to hashtags like this one.

Shweta Narayan writes both poetry and fiction, and has been a Nebula finalist for fiction. But now I am talking about poetry :)

Their work engages with disability, migration, gender and Indian themes, among other things -

and I especially appreciate how these poems do NOT Carefully Explain themselves to the reader. There is no handholding and sugarcoating, there is no "also, this is about X, Y, Z thing if you haven't noticed".

I strive to be brave like this. It takes bravery.

I really enjoy their Triumph series of poems, which are some of my favorite formal poetry out there right now. Formal poetry is so hard and Shweta does it so gracefully.

Here is Triumph XV - Vetala, from @tordotcom -

tor.com/2015/04/02/tri…

And also Triumph XXI - Atman, from Goblin Fruit (sadly now on indefinite hiatus, but you can still read the archives!)

goblinfruit.net/2014/summer/po…

Shweta has a lot of poetry backlist (but no collection!! PUBLISHERS!) so you can wander around and find it. :) I also really like Yajñāḥ / Offering -

strangehorizons.com/poetry/yaj-off…

Shweta also used to edit Stone Telling magazine together with @RoseLemberg (now also sadly on indefinite hiatus). I also helped out a little bit with the last two issues.

The archives are worth perusing, so many standout poems in here:

stonetelling.com

(Please don't comment to direct me at various other Shwetas on Twitter, this happens every time I bring up their work and I'd like to preempt that. Shweta Narayan the poet is not on Twitter, I know this directly from them.)

The second poet I chose to highlight today is Sonya Taaffe.

Sonya is a very prolific poet who writes about Jewish themes, Greco-Roman classics, ghosts and being slowly pulllllled underwater :)

She has multiple collections, but I will also link you to free poems!

Sonya's poetry reassured me from the outset that there was room out there in the world for Jewish poetry with speculative / fabulist / fantasy elements.

(Sonya's voice is VERY different from mine and that cheers me up! :D )

Sonya is also an absolutely awesome editor. She was one of the poetry chief editors of @strangehorizons until recently, and she published some of my favorite poems in @strangehorizons.

Here is The Clock House, a poem about Alan Turing -

stonetelling.com/issue7-mar2012…

(THAT ENDING, MY HEART)

And Postscripts from the Red Sea, this poem is in the syllabus of my QUILTBAG+ Jewish Cultures class -

goblinfruit.net/summer07/posts…

(Ok that was a bit confusingly phrased, sorry. To clarify: I wrote the syllabus)

Sonya Taaffe's collection Ghost Signs has 36 poems about ghosts, and a poetic novella:

amzn.to/2WeIk58

(Book links in the thread will be US Amazon associate links)

And while this is a thread about her poetry, I should mention her recent short story collection Forget the Sleepless Shores -

amzn.to/2CyaQr9

I wrote about Forget the Sleepless Shores at length here:

bogireadstheworld.com/collection-for…

And the third poet I chose to talk about today is Sofia Samatar, who used to be on social media but left.

(And had a poeticfictionessay about it - catapult.co/stories/why-yo… )

Sofia also writes both poetry and fiction (and won the World Fantasy Award for the latter), and I am going to start with the poetry, because people tend to start with the fiction.

Less-known fact: She was a published poet first before she was a published fiction writer :)

I already linked some science poetry in this thread, but I have more!

Girl Hours by Sofia Samatar is just stunning and heartbreaking. It is about and for the astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt -

stonetelling.com/issue6-dec2011…

Sofia Samatar also writes a fair amount of prose poetry, and also uncategorizables.

A prose poem - The Noble Torturer:

bluestockingsmag.com/2015/07/28/the…

(Pls take the title as a content notice, this is about torture.)

And (not just because I miss Goblin Fruit), Burnt Lyric from Goblin Fruit:

goblinfruit.net/2012/summer/po…

(I miss Goblin Fruit for a REASON)

Sofia Samatar ALSO used to edit, specifically poetry and nonfiction at Interfictions! (now also on indefinite hiatus - so many venues I miss)

She doesn't have a poetry collection, but I really do recommend her short story collection Tender, it also has some very poetic pieces -

amzn.to/2U6lmja

(And a great novella about Mennonites on a different planet.)

This is the thread for now; I hope you enjoyed it, read a poem and/or pick up a book :)

If you like the authors, please also support them by talking about their work excessively, with enthusiasm :) Sonya Taaffe also has a Patreon for her movie reviews -

patreon.com/sovay

And if you like my threads like this one, and the recommendations and reviews on my website and elsewhere, you can also support me - patreon.com/bogiperson

Thank you for reading! :)