Late breaking: Poets in Unexpected Places featured in the New York Times!
We were blessed with this super cool write up from NYT reporterDusica Sue Malesivic this past April for National Poetry Month: There is no velvet rope to traverse, no waiting in line and no entrance fee. Instead, the poets take their works to New Yorkers: on trains and ferries, in stores, on the street, and in parks and laundromats. The poets call themselves, appropriately enough, Poets in Unexpected Places. For almost three years, the five core members — the founders Samantha Thornhill, Jon Sands and Adam Falkner, along with Syreeta McFadden...
read moreIf Dirty is the New Clean, then the Unexpected is the New Mundane.
Okay, I confess. More than half a year has passed since I’ve done my own laundry. And before you start imagining putrid piles of clothes cluttering a Brooklyn abode, or bi-weekly garbage bags of musty discards making their way to the Salvation Army and a wallet of maxed-out credit cards to boot, let me say: it’s not even like that. Since I discovered the luxury, I’ve indulged in drop off service. Ten dollars for ten pounds. I pick up my threads next day, my unmentionables folded into origami hellos—smelling of a springtime not of my choosing....
read moreIt’s an international affair!
Check out this awesome video from last winter of poet Ken Arkind PUP’ing in the UK. We international, baby.
read more‘An absolute kind of sincerity’
The train doors open. We board the Q cool as a pinstripe suit, we use different doors, scattering ourselves randomly about the car. As the doors close I become painfully aware of the fact that I would never make it in any sort of espionage work; the excitement terror and anticipation burn on my face clear as a babies conscience. It takes all my effort to keep the corners of my mouth from curling up in a smile. This is going to be a train ride unlike any other. There is something terrifically terrifying and deeply liberating...
read moreThis is PUP! December 2012 Edition.
Scenes from December 1, 2012 Poets in Unexpected Places crew on the Brooklyn bound Q. Samantha Thornhill. Ngoma Hill. Darian Dauchan. Elana Bell. Adam Falkner....
read morePop! Pop! That’s the sound of the police…
Well folks, this is a P.U.P first…read on and you’ll see what I mean. The day started as any P.U.P day in my experience has— a mixture of giddiness, excitement and, yes, a fear, as we gathered outside the Staten Island Ferry terminal on this gorgeously sunny and windy Saturday. Jon asked that I start things off with a song, and as soon as I looked out at the massive and gorgeous Atlantic, I knew exactly what I wanted to sing, a praise song to Yamaja, the Yoruba Goddess of water and protection. As I began to sing, the ocean sparkling behind...
read moreA poet’s response to freedom of speech.
Rising Fascism on the Staten Island Ferry So it’s saturday afternoon the Pop Up Poets invade the S.I Ferry today we’re a bit short staffed our ranks being smaller than usual we forge on relentlessly Jon Sands,Corrina Bain,Elana Bell, Osunyoyin Alake Syreeta McFadden and yours truly As we enter the ferry Elana has a strange feeling Osunyoyin says it’s premonition I’m plodding along trying to psyche myself into doing this Suffering post traumatic slave syndrome I really don’t like large ships Elana sings a...
read moreInitiation Day.
Which also happens to be St. Patrick’s Day. I step into the bright buzz of Union Square. It’s only 2:30 in the afternoon, but I’m already nervous about the holiday activity that’s legendary in this city on March 17th. But most of my jitters fade away when I join the circle of fellow PUPers gathered at the Ghandi Statue. We head down into the station to hop on the Q train to Brooklyn. A dapper and highly decorated service man stands directly across from me. I tease the captain in a friendly banter about his ornaments, knowing that what...
read moreThoughts on Exposure from a First-Timer.
The first to arrive, I wait at the base of the Gandhi statue and watch as this unexpected March warmth worked its magic through Union Square. We’re all a little more exposed today, offering stretches of previously shrouded skin to spring’s first bursts of sunshine. All too eager to expose enough of myself to don my first sundress of the season, I wasn’t feeling quite as easy about the way in which I was about to expose myself for the first time. There, in the midst of dodging the already drunk St. Patrick’s Day celebrators, I nervously sipped...
read moreCrossing Brooklyn Ferry.
Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face; Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose; And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. It all begins with Whitman. Well, sort of. When we gathered around the Gandhi statue one April...
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