In this episode, we host a conversation between two outstanding poets: bridgette bianca and MICHAEL CHANG.
bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She co-curates two literary series, Making Room for Black Women and the Women’s Center for Creative Work Reading Series. Her debut collection of poetry, be/trouble, is out now from Writ Large Press.
MICHAEL CHANG (they/them) is the author of several collections of poetry, including DRAKKAR NOIR (winner of the Bateau Press BOOM Chapbook Contest), CHINATOWN ROMEO (Ursus Americanus Press, 2021), as well as BOYFRIEND PERSPECTIVE (Really Serious Literature, 2021). Tapped to edit Lambda Literary’s Emerge anthology, their poems have been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, & the Pushcart Prize. In 2021, they were awarded the Poetry Project’s prestigious Brannan Prize. Their collection ALMANAC OF USELESS TALENTS is forthcoming from CLASH Books.
bridgette experiments with poetic form, deploying radical enjambment and extended metaphors to powerful effect. She writes poetry that is direct and forceful; she doesn’t hold back. The same could be said of MICHAEL’s poems that deploy wild, all-caps disjunction to evoke abrasive, uncomfortable scenes of public and private sociality. And yet, both bridgette and MICHAEL write poems that are incredibly subtle and even intimate. Bridgette and MICHAEL’s poetry pushes the art of poetry forward, even as they each use poetry as a vehicle to investigate their own lived experience. In our conversation, we discussed how poets relate to an audience, the role of poetry communities, workshop, revision, and much, much more.
