The queens get Swiftian!As always, please support the writers we mention by buying at indie bookstores. If you need a good one, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a black-owned DC-area store. Catherine Barnett is a Taurus. Watch Nicole Sealey perform Barnett's "Apophasis at the All-Night Rite Aid" here. (~2 min)You can read Vievee Francis's poem "Say It, Say It Any Way You Can" here. You can read the title poem of Cathy Linh Che's book, Split, here. The Literary House Press released a broadside of that poem; you can purchase that here. Visit Yes Yes Books here. Watch Diannely Antigua read "Diary Entry # 1: Testimony" from her Ugly Music here. (~2 min)Watch Roger Reeves read his poem "The Book of Commas" at the O, Miami Poetry Festival here. (~4 min)Watch the fabulosity that is Naomi Shihab Nye (Pisces) read her poem "How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished" here. (~2 min.) Her next book, The Turtle of Michigan, is a novel available from Greenwillow Books as of March 15, 2022.Matthew Olzmann (Libra) is the author of Constellation Route (Alice James, January 2022) and two previous collections of poems, Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Watch him read his poem "Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session After the Reading, Asked for Career Advice" (originally published in Waxwing) here. (~2.5 min.)Aaron Smith (Gemini) is the author most recently of The Book of Daniel (U Pittsburgh, 2019). He is co-editor for Court Green. Watch him read his poem "Cher Uncensored" here. (~2 min.) Lynn Melnick(Scorpio) has two books releasing in 2022: Refusenik: Poems (YesYes) and I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press's American Music Series). She has 2 previous books of poems: Landscape with Sex and Violence (2017), and If I Should Say I Have Hope (2012). Read her poem "Landscape with Loanword and Solstice" in the New Yorker here and watch her read her poem "One Sentence About Los Angeles" here. (~2 min, CW for sexual assault.) Watch "10 Questions for John Ashbery" (with Time); he discusses poetry readings, art criticism, and why he hates the sound of his own voice here. (~4 min) You can read Claudia Rankine's "Open Letter: A Dialogue on Race and Poetry" here. You can hear Terrance Hayes's read his poems "Talk" and "The Blue Baraka" here, courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library (~7 min; "Talk" is up first).

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.