Art

More young people reading, buying poetry

FLORIDA COURIER — People are clicking on poetry on Twitter.

Published

8 years ago

January 27, 2019

By Jenna Ross

ST. PAUL, Minn. – People are clicking on poetry on Twitter. They’re listening to poems on podcasts. They’re buying poetry collections on Amazon.

But on a recent Monday night in St. Paul, they were hearing poetry in person. A diverse, mostly 20-something crowd snapped and purred as friends and strangers read their verses from Park Square Theatre’s lower stage during Button Poetry’s monthly slam poetry competition.

Many were drawn by YouTube. (Button’s YouTube channel boasts more than a million followers.) By Instagram. By the changing world of poetry.

“We’re seeing astronomical growth,” said Sam Van Cook, who founded Button, a Minneapolis-based company that straddles poetry’s in-person and online worlds. “Friends who work in book sales … we joke that for the first time in any of our lives, poetry is a growth industry.”

National bump

More people — especially young people — are reading and buying poetry. About 12 percent of adults read poetry in the past year, a bump of 5 percentage points over 2012 and a 15-year high, according to a new survey by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Sales of poetry books have swelled over that time, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks book sales in the U.S., “making it one of the fastest growing categories in publishing.”

Social media are driving the trend. Among the top 20 bestselling poetry authors in 2017 were a dozen so-called “Instapoets,” who attract readers by sharing short, photogenic verse on Instagram and Twitter.

Their queen is Rupi Kaur, an Indian-born Canadian poet who boasts 3.4 million Instagram followers, sells out theaters and claps back at her detractors.

New, ‘b-side poems’

But poets published by traditional presses and praised by critics use those platforms too, sharing one another’s work and changing the notion of a poet as an old White dude.

Minnesotans Danez Smith and Hieu Minh Nguyen are among those sharing new and “b-side” poems on Twitter, letting their thousands of followers in on whom they’re crushing on, poetry-wise and otherwise.

“There’s a myth around who a poet can be — or who can be a poet,” Nguyen said by phone. “People are seeing that those archetypes, those barriers, aren’t true.”

More diverse

As the slate of bards becomes more diverse, so do their audiences. Some of the biggest gains in that NEA Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, released last year, came from people of color. About 15 percent of African-Americans reported reading poetry, up from 7 percent in 2012.

Some 13 percent of AsianAmericans had read poetry in the past year, compared with 5 percent in 2012.

Minnesota-based Vietnamese-American poet Bao Phi compared it to the shift in Hollywood, where “we’ve seen that representation can actually pay out huge dividends.”

Spoken word success

For decades, many marginalized people have hustled to diversify the slate of poets performing and publishing, especially by connecting with students and young people, said Phi, who crafted his reputation as a spoken word artist in the 1990s.

Performance-based poetry finally shed some of the scene’s chauvinism. Spoken word artists broke through the glass ceiling of publishing. (Phi didn’t publish his first poetry collection, “Sông I Sing,” until 2011.)

“This didn’t happen overnight,” Phi said. “All that work adds up to what we’re seeing now.”

‘Political poetry’ hot

Erika Stevens, poetry editor at large for the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Coffee House Press, pointed to “Indecency,” by Justin Phillip Reed, which tackles White supremacy with intimate, sometimes confrontational poems.

Last year, that collection, published by Coffee House, won the National Book Award in poetry, showing “how far the institutions have come in terms of what they recognize as innovative and groundbreaking and worthy of award attention,” Stevens said.

U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith recently wrote in the New York Times about why “political poetry is hot again,” arguing that poetry “has become a means of owning up to the complexity of our problems.”

Reaching women

Poets and readers have debated the success of Kaur, who turned a viral Instagram post into bestselling books, a tour and, now, printed canvases.

A recent poem, paired with a pen drawing, nabbed more than 200,000 likes: “i am water/ soft enough/to offer life/tough enough/ to drown it away.”

Whether Kaur’s hugely popular poetry is “for me or not is not the question,” said Van Cook, of Button Poetry. “But I can tell you, if I talk to people about poetry at a wedding or a coffee shop, people — especially young women, women of color — she’s one of the first names on their lips.”

Those young women recognize themselves in her work and find solace in her books, he said.

‘Little less magnificent’

Van Cook founded Button because he believes poetry is “most vibrant read aloud, and read by someone who loves it.” Its YouTube videos of readings by well- and lesser known poets often amass tens of thousands of views.

Composers talk about how film took classical music, which was being relegated to the sidelines, and gave it a new, more prominent home, he said. “People are going to look back and talk about social media that way for poetry,” Van Cook predicted. “What poetry needed was to be a little less magnificent.”

At “Button Poetry Live” on Monday night, a few newbies and some spoken word veterans took the stage, reading from iPhones and journals and memory. Many of their poems grappled with tough topics: micro-aggressions, breakups, coming out. Then, the special guest took the stage: poet, performer and podcast host Franny Choi.

For one poem, titled @fannychoir for her Twitter handle, she took racist, misogynistic tweets and Google-translated them into other languages and then back again, to English.

In short, she garbled their words and made them hers.

“Mrs. Great Anime Pornography, the fruit of the field,” she began with a smirk.

Making them think

Outside the theater, three friends in their 20s perused Choi’s chapbooks, selling for $12 and $15. They started attending Button’s live events after hearing about them from a friend, finding them to be an inexpensive, fulfilling way to spend a night together.

“It’s thought-provoking,” said Katie Snell, 26, of Minneapolis. “I cried.” Snell owns “Milk and Honey,” a book of Kaur’s poetry, she said. But that wasn’t her introduction to the form.

Years back, she said, she came across a book of sonnets at a used-book store and brought it home.

This article originally appeared in the Florida Courier.

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Art

Misty Copeland Shapes Ballet’s Tomorrow

THE POSITIVE COMMUNITY — Misty Copeland will curate the 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival, a two-week event in New York City from August 4-16. This role allows her to influence the future of ballet by showcasing a wide range of dancers, choreographers, and companies. The festival will present both established and contemporary works, blending classical traditions with new artistic expressions.

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1 week ago

August 9, 2026

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Misty Copeland at the 2026 Met Gala, wearing fashion in theme of "Costume Art" Date 4 May 2026, 19:39:21

This summer, Misty Copeland will step into a different kind of spotlight. Instead of taking center stage as a dancer, she will help determine what audiences see onstage as curator of the 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival. Taking place August 4 through August 16 at The Joyce Theater in New York City, the two-week celebration will bring together dancers, choreographers and companies representing a broad spectrum of ballet. The festival gives Copeland an opportunity to share not only her appreciation for ballet’s traditions, but also her vision for its future.

Copeland understands better than most how powerful a ballet stage can be. Her historic career with American Ballet Theatre changed the conversation about representation in one of the world’s most traditional performing arts. When she became the company’s first Black woman to reach the rank of principal dancer, her achievement carried significance far beyond a personal milestone. It gave young dancers of color a new image of what was possible and challenged the industry to reconsider who belonged at the center of ballet.

That history informs the perspective she brings to the festival. Copeland has spent much of her career moving between performance, mentorship, advocacy and storytelling. Her curatorial role allows her to bring those interests together by creating a program that does not treat ballet as a museum piece. Instead, the festival presents dance as an evolving language capable of carrying classical traditions into new cultural and artistic territory.

Audiences will encounter a mixture of established works and contemporary creations during the festival. Classical ballet vocabulary will share space with choreography that pushes dancers toward different physical, emotional and theatrical possibilities. The result is intended to give audiences a broader understanding of the art form while demonstrating that tradition and innovation do not have to be competing forces.

The lineup also provides an opportunity to see dancers from different artistic environments. Performers connected to organizations including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Houston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Complexions Contemporary Ballet are among those represented in the festival. Each company carries its own history and artistic identity, making their participation part of a larger conversation about the many ways ballet can be performed and interpreted.

The presence of Dance Theatre of Harlem is particularly meaningful within the larger story of Copeland’s career and the evolution of Black representation in ballet. Founded during a period when opportunities for Black dancers were severely limited, the company helped demonstrate that excellence and classical training could flourish in a Black cultural environment. Its legacy continues to influence dancers and audiences, making its connection to a festival curated by Copeland especially resonant.

The program also reaches beyond a single definition of contemporary ballet. Choreographers with different backgrounds and artistic philosophies contribute to an evening that can move from recognizable classical structures to works shaped by modern dance, theater, popular culture and new approaches to movement. That diversity reflects a generation of artists who increasingly see ballet not as a rigid vocabulary but as a foundation from which they can explore.

For New York audiences, the festival offers something that is increasingly valuable: the opportunity to experience outstanding dancers in an intimate setting. The Joyce is known for presenting dance in a theater where audiences can see movement and artistry up close. That environment can make a familiar ballet work feel newly personal while allowing experimental pieces to communicate with unusual immediacy.

Copeland’s role as curator also sends a message about the importance of artistic leadership. The people who select performers and choreography help determine which stories receive attention and which artists receive opportunities. By bringing a range of voices into the festival, Copeland is using that responsibility to broaden the conversation around ballet. Her choices can introduce audiences to artists they may not otherwise encounter while encouraging longtime ballet followers to look at the form from a different perspective.

The 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival ultimately arrives at an important moment for the art form. Ballet is carrying centuries of tradition into an era defined by changing audiences, broader representation and increasingly adventurous choreography. Copeland’s festival reflects that transition. For two weeks in August, The Joyce will become a meeting place for the familiar and the unexpected—a celebration of where ballet came from and a preview of where it may be going. And with Misty Copeland helping shape the conversation, the future of ballet promises to be as expansive as the dancers who are defining it.

Based on reporting by The Positive Community.

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BOOK REVIEW: Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl: Essays

Growing up in North Carolina, she Black Girled her hair her entire life. Her grandma made her sit for box braids when she was small, telling Brown that she was “tenderheaded.” Later, Brown had relaxed hair until she “went broke” and couldn’t afford the process anymore. That was when she got acquainted with her natural hair – although she returned to box braids at least once, and loved them all over again.

Published

4 weeks ago

July 19, 2026

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Author: Amena Brown, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Tiny Rep Books, SRP: $30.00, Page Count: 320 pages

Some things can really make you cross.

People telling you your business, for instance. People asking questions they have no reason to know the answers to. Folks who criticize your hair or clothes or life. These things would set anyone off; they’d be the last straw for anybody. As in the new book, “Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl” by Amena Brown, some folks just cross the line.

In a way, it’s a matter of grammar.

Depending on how you say it, “Black Girl is a noun and a verb,” says Brown. A Black Girl can be a Black Girl… and she can Black Girl. Brown herself has done it “in six countries.”

As the child of a strict Pentecostal mother, Brown was a “late bloomer.” She didn’t drink alcohol until she was in her twenties. She was chaste while dating and a better church girl than a party girl. After she left the church, she began experimenting with wine first, then cocktails. She learned to cook, reasoning that the path to finding love started in a kitchen, one that happened to be her grandmother’s. And yes, love did eventually come in the form of a red-headed White man who was her friend before he became her boyfriend — and before he became her mother-sanctioned, grandma-approved husband.

Overall, says Brown, there is no single right method for doing this.

“There are so many ways to Black Girl, which means the way you Black Girl is beautiful, and the way I Black Girl is beautiful too.”

Looking for a collection of addictive, can’t-read-just-one essays that’ll make you laugh but that also feel like author Amena Brown is peeking at your life? Want a book that speaks to every corner of your existence?

Yeah, then you want “Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl.”

You know how it is when you spot something so profound, so right, that you just have to call your friends and read it out loud to them? That’s what you’ll find here: truth told with humor that’s also oozing with warmth. Add honesty that’s smart and bold and practically begging for a “Heck, YES!” and you’ve got your new favorite book.

The essays here are short enough to read in a few minutes, but compelling enough to make you want more, so give yourself room.

This is a book for twenty- and thirty-somethings, but also for their mothers and grandmas who can handle respectful irreverence and surefooted playfulness. Can men enjoy “Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl”? Sure, but it’s more for women, cross your heart.

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Eric Murphy’s ‘City of Stars’ Honors Culture and Community

Murphy’s artistic journey is grounded in a lifelong passion for storytelling through visuals. Beginning as a child sketching celebrities, he later expanded into collage, blending illustration with found imagery and photography.

Published

4 weeks ago

July 19, 2026

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Artist Eric Murphy celebrates his birthday at the AAMLO, African American Museum and Library of Oakland with his exhibit City of Stars: From the Archives in downtown Oakland. Photo courtesy of Judah

Eric Murphy’s latest exhibition, “Oakland City of Stars: From the Archives,” on view through Aug. 31, offers more than a visual tribute to Oakland; it presents history and a global connection rooted in the city’s cultural legacy.

Curated by Veda Silva at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO), the mixed-media solo show builds on Murphy’s evolving “Oakland All-Stars” series, highlighting figures rooted in community history.

His formal training at Laney College sharpened his photography skills, while his early career as a fashion photographer exposed him to broader creative networks. At the same time, his decade-long work with Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland expanded his artistic journey.

These experiences converge in “City of Stars,” where Murphy combines photography, digital collage, and graphic design into distinctive portraits. Each subject is embedded within a stylized map of Oakland, marked by district lines, and layered with visual references tied to their personal and cultural narratives.

Presented in a ‘playing card’ format, the works replace traditional suits with the City of Oakland logo, while multilingual elements and hand-painted details deepen the storytelling. The result is a series that feels both archival and contemporary, an artistic documentation of Oakland’s influence across generations.

The exhibit’s opening reception was also Murphy’s birthday celebration. “I’m celebrating my birthday, Oakland history, cultural ties, and art.”

About 50 guests attended the exhibit, including Joyce Gordon of Joyce Gordon Gallery, entertainer Zina Escovedo, and activists Alan Banks and Inez Banks. “We loaned one of our pieces to the exhibit,” said Alan Banks proudly.

Murphy credits much of his inspiration to his deep interest in Oakland history and its global intersections. Murphy also created a line of Oakland International language shirts. The concept originated in 2012 during a cultural exchange exhibition he managed between Oakland and its sister city, Fukuoka, Japan, celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Working with artists such as Emmy Award-winner James Gayles and photographer Hiroko To, Murphy began exploring language as a bridge between cultures. After studying Japanese at Laney College, he became fascinated with how “Oakland” could be expressed across languages.

That curiosity evolved into a design series beginning in 2019 with “Oakland” translated into Japanese as “Okurando.” From there, Murphy collaborated with community members and translators to create versions in multiple languages. By incorporating archival materials, cultural symbols, and historical references, Murphy transformed each shirt into a narrative artifact rather than a simple translation.

“Each design allowed me to show how rich our history is and how connected Oakland is to the world,” said Murphy.

This same philosophy drives the “Oakland All-Stars” series. Inspired by a moment of pride watching actor Shemar Moore acknowledge his Oakland roots on national television, Murphy began researching other successful people connected to the city. The series now includes former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, actress Zendaya, and the late comedian Paul Mooney, among others linked to Oakland.

“I am proud to feature Oakland in my artwork,” said Murphy. “Oakland is a special place, and art is a great way of showing the world what we are about.”