New York Daily News Profiles 'Young women poets'
Well, this happened! Apparently, "women have a way with words." Or so says The New York Daily News, which features today a full-page, full-color feature on New York City's "young women poets," specifically Trisha Low, Monica McClure, Ana Božičević, Lisa Marie Basile, Alina Gregorian, and Camille Rankine, with a nod to Brooklyn’s Poet Laureate Tina Chang (but she's "nearing the end of her reign," and so isn't included here). The profiles flesh out a gallery of photographs by Lawrence Schwartzwald. As for the feature's reasoning:
Female poets across the boroughs are breathing new life into a literary genre that’s long been dominated by older white men.
Scribes like Chelsea’s Lee Ann Brown and Oprah favorite Camille Rankine dare to pen lines about subjects like menstruation, orgasms and lady parts that their bros in prose are afraid to touch.
Oh, those bros in prose, so afraid to touch! And there's no photo of Brown, unfortunately. But we do get samples of the poets' work. Here's Monica McClure:
MONICA MCCLURE, 27
If someone says poetess
I am going to scream and chop
a hobby horse to pieces
with an axe
Feel me?— from “Flashdancers”
“Women are writing the most interesting work,” says the Crown Heights wordsmith, whose new book, “Macha,” featuring poems investigating her favorite Spanish slang words and phrases in English, arrives next year. She earned an MFA in poetry at NYU, previously published the chapbook “Mood Swing” and curates the Atlas Reading Series in Brooklyn.