Words and Shit

Tariq Luthun is a Detroit-born, Dearborn-raised community organizer, data consultant, and Emmy Award-winning poet. The son of Palestinian Muslim immigrants from Gaza, he is a Kresge Arts in Detroit fellow that earned his MFA in Poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Luthun’s work has earned him such honors as being named Best of the Net, in addition to fellowships through Kundiman, The Watering Hole, and the Kresge Foundation. His work has appeared in Vinyl Poetry, Lit Hub, Mizna, and Button Poetry, among others. He also serves as a board member The Offing Literary Magazine. Luthun’s first collection of poetry, How The Water Holds Me, was awarded Editors' Selection by Bull City Press and is available now.

AYOKUNLE FALOMO is Nigerian, American, and the author of Autobiomythography of (Alice James Books, 2024), AFRICANAMERICAN’T (FlowerSong Press, 2022), two self-published col-lections and African, American (New Delta Review, 2019; selected by Selah Saterstrom as the winner of New Delta Review’s 8th annual chapbook contest). A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where he obtained his MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry, his work has been anthologized and widely published.

A writer from Ohio, they are Social Media Manager for The Kenyon Review and Poetry Editor at Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Their work has been featured in Button Poetry, Indiana Review, The Journal, The Margins, The Recluse, and elsewhere. They’ve received numerous awards, most recently, second place winner of Frontier Poetry’s 2023 Hurt and Healing Prize, a 2022 Academy of American Poets Prize and Booth Journal’s 2022 Beyond the Margins contest prize, and their work has been supported by the Tin House Summer Workshop.

tanea lunsford lynx (pronouns flexible) is a writer, abolitionist, and fourth generation Black San Franciscan on both sides. tanea is a proud alum of Voices of Our Nation (VONA) and the Lambda Literary Retreat. In 2023 tanea grew her showings of multidisciplinary work to include her first solo exhibition (we were here) at the San Francisco Main Library and an interactive exhibit (I Used to Live Here) as a part of MUNI RAISED ME at SOMArts. in They’ve been a featured artist in the National Queer Arts Festival twice: in 2023 they curated and hosted “Remembering Club Q” and in 2018 they co-curated 'Still Here VI: Existence as Resistance', a performance featuring queer Black San Franciscans. tanea has been awarded individual artist grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission as well as residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, The San Francisco Public Library (in collaboration with the SF Arts Commission), Mesa Refuge, the Vermont Studio Center, and others. Her work has been published in Foglifter, the Lambda Literary Anthology, Mala Forever, and in "Nothing to Lose But Our Chains: Black Voices on Activism, Resistance, and Love".  tanea earned a BA from Columbia University and an MA from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). tanea served as Chair of the Spoken Arts Department at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts from 2021-2023 and currently teaches Social justice and Ethnic Studies classes at City College of San Francisco.   tanea is currently at work on her first novel.

Leigh Lucas is a writer in San Francisco. Her chapbook Landsickness (Tupelo Press, 2024) was selected by Chen Chen for the 2023 Sunken Garden Poetry Chapbook Award. She has been awarded residencies at Tin House, Community of Writers, and Kenyon, and has been recognized with AWP’s Kurt Brown Prize, as well as with a Best New Poet nomination, Best of Net nomination, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Leigh’s poems can be found in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Alta Journal, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Stanford and an MFA from Warren Wilson. 

Lexi Pelle is the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a finalist for the Prufer Poetry Prize, Crosswinds Poetry Prize and the Marvin Bell Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Ninth Letter, SWWIM, Sucarnochee Review, and The Shore. Her debut poetry collection, Let Go With The Lights On, is out now.

Born and raised in Chicago, storyteller Steven Antoine Willis uses his poetic and theatrical background to embark on the daunting task of creatively articulating African American culture. With art heavily influenced by urban life and religion, Steven mixes elements of hip hop poetics and theatrical performance with formal teachings of anthropology, and political theory to help express his eclectic personal narrative. Willis is a contributing writer to the Breakbeat Poets Anthology, NYU's National Council for Teachers of English Journal, and is a 3-time Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist. Willis received his MFA in Acting from theUniversity of Iowa in 2021 and the Iowa Writers Workshop for Poetry in 2023. His first full poetry collection A Peculiar People was released in 2022 through Button Poetry.

Haydil Henriquez is an arts educator, cultural advocate, program manager and Bronx-bred poet. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology & Education from Swarthmore College in 2014, and has worked with communities across the Diaspora facilitating oral storytelling workshops for youth. Although Haydil does not possess a formal degree in writing, she witnessed the magic of poetry during her formative years in the spoken word community. Published in The Best Teen Writing of 2008, and later receiving honors like the Mahasweta Devi/ Gloria Anzaldúa Creative/Visual/ Performing Arts Award in 2012 from the Intercultural Center at Swarthmore. Haydil then participated in the Poets House Emerging Poets Fellowship in 2018, Las Musas Books Hermanas Mentorship Program in 2020 and Cave Canem Intermediate Portals into Language Workshop in 2021. Since then her work has been published in Cutbank Literary Journal (University of Montana, 2020), Rigorous Magazine (2021), Coffin Bell Journal (2022), ¡Pa'lante! (2022), TroubleMaker FireStarter (2022), Worcestor Review (2022) and many more literary publications. Haydil was honored as the inaugural Bronx Poet Laureate in 2021.

Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta (she/they) is a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY)-BCC. Their poetry collection, Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere, was a 2020 finalist for the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (Get Fresh Books, 2021). She is the editor of Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (Routledge, 2019), Creative Writing Editor at Chicana/Latina Studies Journal, and a new Poetry Editor at Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ). Select work is in The Baffler; Best American Poetry; Split this Rock; Paterson Review; and Acentos Review. Works are forthcoming in Inkwell Journal and The Hopkins Review. They are a Geraldine Dodge Foundation Poet, a Macondo Fellow, and a VONA alum. Her oral history and memoir work, titled First Spanish, has been funded by the Mellon Foundation. 

Diamond Braxton (she/they) is a queer, mixed-race Black-Xicanx writer, editor, and educator based in Texas. Their work appears in Best Microfiction 2023, Sundress Publications Best of the Net anthology, The Forge, Stanchion, Hellebore Press, ANMLY, and others. She is a Lambda Literary retreat fellow (2023) and a Tin House 21′ workshop alum. She is the Founder of a new intersectional, anti-racist publishing press called Abode Press, and she is working on her first collection of genre-bending short stories. Learn more at www.diamondgizellebraxton.com or @DiamondGBraxton on everything else.

Andre Bradford, a.k.a. S.C. Says, is an Austin based slam poet who has been performing slam poetry since 2013. He's toured and featured at venues and universities across the country, and his work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Write About Now, The Edge radio, The Culture Trip, and Blavity. He is a two time Austin Poetry Slam Champion, the 2022 Texas Grand Slam Champion, and is the author of the poetry collection Golden Brown Skin. He also once popped a bag of popcorn without burning a single kernel, which is arguably one of his greatest achievements.  His poetry covers a gamut of topics ranging from being mixed race, to social justice, to mental health awareness, to never settling in relationships. Slam poetry is an art form he loves due to its raw vulnerability and its ability to cultivate transparency and dialogues into many different walks of life.

Lacey Roop is a queer, non-binary poet & performer. They perform their work nationwide at bookstores, festivals, and college campuses. They have previously ranked 6th in the world at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, a former Austin Poetry Slam Champion, and have been featured on PBS’s, Roadtrip Nation, which reaches over 60 million households worldwide. Their work is a powerful exploration on gender and sexualiity, identity, and the complexities of being human. A Mississippi native, they currently reside in Austin, TX with their spouse and two incredibly large dogs (Cassiopeia & Artemis).

Ayanna Florence is a poet, creative, and teaching artist originally from Chesapeake, VA and currently residing in Charlotte, NC. She is a Brave New Voices alum, a Southern Fried Poetry Slam finalist, and has been performing spoken word across the country since 16 years old. Ayanna is the 2023 Slam Charlotte Grand Slam champion, the current North Carolina Regional Slam champion, a 2023 Queen of the South slam champion, and the 2023 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam champion. She is passionate about using her poetry as a method of healing for herself and others.

jason b. crawford (They/He/She) is a writer born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut Full-Length Year of the Unicorn Kidz is out from Sundress Publications. crawford holds a Bachelor of Science in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. They are a 2023 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Voices fellow. They are the winner of the Courtney Valentine Prize for Outstanding Work by a Millennial Artist, the winner of the Rhino’s Founders Prize, and a finalist for the Frontier’s Open prize. crawford was a finalist for the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid 2021 and 2022 Poetry Contest. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, Metro Weekly, AGNI Magazine, Foglifter Magazine, RHINO Poetry, Four Way Review, Cincinnati Review, Frontier Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, among others. They hold an MFA in poetry from The New School.

Jane Wong is the author of the debut memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She also wrote two poetry collections: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Harvard's Woodberry Poetry Room, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, UCross, Loghaven, and others. She grew up in a take-out restaurant on the Jersey shore and is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University.

Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet, author, and performer from New York City. A star of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and the Spike Lee movie Inside Man with Denzel Washington, Carlos is the International Book Award-winning author of several books, including the poetry collection Fractures and the memoir Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood.

Ally Ang is a gaysian poet & editor from Seattle. A Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets nominee, their work has appeared in The Rumpus, Muzzle Magazine, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Ally is a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and MacDowell fellow. Their debut poetry collection, Let the Moon Wobble, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2025. Find them at allysonang.com or on Twitter and Instagram @TheOceanIsGay.

The Words & Shit podcast is back for season 4, and we're kicking it off with none other than the award winning KB Brookins! KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, cultural worker, and artist from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut poetry collection Freedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s debut memoir Pretty releases on May 28, 2024 with Alfred A. Knopf. Follow them online at @earthtokb.

We've arrived at the end of Season 3 of Words and Shit! And to close it all out we're bringing on our hosts to interview each other, reminisce about their favorite moments of the season, share some of their work, and GIVE AWAY SOME PRIZES! We have books from our featured authors, t-shirts, and more. Get to know your hosts, catch some of the most memorable moments of season 3, and win some great goodies!

We're welcoming award winning author Kemi Alabi into the Words and Shit studio to talk about their upcoming book, past successes, the importance of the work they're doing in the black and brown queer and trans spaces, and so much more! Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry! Kemi Alabi is the author of AGAINST HEAVEN (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. Their poems and essays have been published in the Atlantic, Poetry, Boston Review, Catapult, Guernica, them., the BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2, Best New Poets 2019, and elsewhere. Selected by Chen Chen as winner of the 2020 Beacon Street Poetry Prize, Kemi has received Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Brittle Paper Award nominations along with support from MacDowell, Civitella Ranieri, Tin House and Pink Door. They’ve performed their work across the United States for schools, universities, museums, libraries, theaters, conferences, festivals, protests and more. A Mass LEAP-trained teaching artist, they’ve worked with students of all ages. Kemi believes in the world-shifting power of words and the radical imaginations of Black queer and trans people. As cultural strategy director of Forward Together, they built political power with cultural workers of color through programs like Echoing Ida, a home for Black women and nonbinary writers, and annual art campaigns like Trans Day of Resilience. The Echoing Ida Collection, coedited with Cynthia R. Greenlee and Janna Zinzi, is available now from Feminist Press.