By Collection Management Librarians Dontaná & Andrea
Poetry is good for our brains. Studies show that reading poems activates our brain’s cognitive functions differently than when we read novels and other nonfiction. Poetry helps us recognize rhymes and rhythms, and expands our “capacity to understand complex, multiple meanings.”
This National Poetry Month, we’ve paired poetry collections with celebrated movies and music albums to create a singular experience that explores common themes.
Poetry couplets
Strange Beach by Oluwaseun Olayiwola
Description: At times surreal, at times philosophical, the poems of Strange Beach demarcate a fiercely interior voice inside of queer Black masculinity. Oluwaseun's speakers—usually, but not specified, as two men—move between watery landscapes, snowy terrains, and domestic conflicts. Each poem proceeds by way of music and melody, allowing themes of masculinity, sex, parental relations, death, and love to conspire within a voice that prioritizes intimate address.
Moonlight
Description: A young black man struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.
Why they pair well together: Queer, Black, Masculine. These are the words that come to mind for both Oluwaseun’s collection and Jenkins’ award-winning film. There is no one way to be these things, and both titles explore them from different angles.
The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder Through Science & Poetry by Maria Popova
Description: "Poetry and science," as Popova writes in her introduction, "are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery.
Mother Earth's Plantasia
Description: An album of Moog compositions to be played for growing plants.
Why they pair well together: Both the book and the album can have you appreciating nature and the world around us.
Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones
Description: Jones writes poems that are lyrical, playful, musical, and political. It troubles expectations and asks the reader to challenge their assumptions about Blackness, sexuality, and socioeconomics.
New Blue Sun by Andre3000
Description: "New Blue Sun represents a continuation of adventure and discovery for me. This discovery has happened many times in my life and career, and it’s very exciting to witness. I say 'witness' because I am also watching it happen along with you all and I never really know what will come or how I will respond or interpret the inspiration. We all have aspirations, ideas or plans but isn’t it the most awesome when life surprises us in a way that becomes greater than anything we could have imagined?"—André 3000
Why they pair well together: Both titles embody a sense of playfulness and exploration within writing and music.
Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola
Description: In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, in the early 90s, Helen makes a drastic choice to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a small-town housewife. But in this world of community and tradition, leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone.
Seire
Description: In Korean folk traditions, "seire" is the 21 days after a baby is born in which they're uniquely vulnerable to bad luck, curses—even evil spirits. Many superstitions surround these first three weeks in a baby's life, and new mother Hae-mi carefully follows every one of them. Father Woo-jin is reluctantly willing to play along, but when he attends an ex-girlfriend's funeral, he unwittingly opens the door to dark supernatural dangers.
Why they pair well together: Trying to follow as well as break tradition can lead you into some very interesting paths.
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Description: Traveling across the country, journalist Karla Cornejo Villavicencio risked arrest at every turn to report the extraordinary stories of her fellow undocumented Americans. Her subjects have every reason to be wary around reporters, but Cornejo Villavicencio has unmatched access to their stories. Her work culminates in a stunning, essential read for our times.
A Day Without a Mexican
Description: California awakens one day to discover that one-third of its population has vanished. A peculiar pink fog surrounds the state and communication outside its boundaries has completely shut down. As the day progresses, it becomes apparent the sole characteristic linking the missing 14 million is their Hispanic heritage.
Why they pair well together: Both titles explore different perspectives of the impact the Latinx community has in the U.S.
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez
Description: In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the story, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between.
499
Description: To reflect on the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 2021, director Reyes offers a bold hybrid cinema experience exploring the brutal legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico. Through the eyes of a ghostly conquistador, the film recreates Hernan Cortes' epic journey from the coasts of Veracruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the site of contemporary Mexico City.
Why they pair well together: From the historical to the modern, Olivarez’s poems and Reyes’ film explore the distinct feeling of both/and—Mexican and American, colonization and heritage reclamation.
Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert by Amber McCrary
Description: In a voice that is jubilant, irreverent, sometimes scouring, sometimes heartfelt, and always unmistakably her own, Amber McCrary remaps the deserts of Arizona through the blue corn story of a young Diné woman figuring out love and life with an O’odham man. Reflecting experiences of Indigenous joy, pain, and family, these shapeshifting poems celebrate the love between two Native partners, a love that flourishes alongside the traumas they face.
Kindred
Description: Adrian Russell Wills, a Wonnarua man, and Gillian Moody, a Wodi Wodi woman, share an undeniable bond. Both were Aboriginal children adopted by white families, and later in life, they each shared similar desires to reconnect with their bloodlines. In this moving documentary, Wills and Moody recount their emotional searches for belonging, providing an intimate journey into isolation and identity.
Why they pair well together: Love, connection, and a sense of belonging tie these two titles together.
Song of My Softening by Omotara James
Description: A profound and intersectional text, Song of My Softening is a queer, fat, love song of the interior. Poems study the ever-changing relationship with oneself while also investigating the relationship that the world and nation have with Black queerness. This book is a window into what perseverance looks like, ungilded, a mirror for anyone born into a culture outside of their identity, who has survived alienation, violation, depression, and systematized oppression. Unspoken truths about the body and soul are mused with openness, candor, and tenderness.
Empire Waist
Description: Lenore Miller is a plus-size, insecure teen whose talent for fashion is discovered by her confident, plus-sized classmate. This discovery forces her into the spotlight and into the path of both bullies and new friends. But her image-conscious mother's fears and Lenore's deep self-loathing prevent her from wearing her own designs. Will Lenore ever feel the self-love she inspires in others?
Why they pair well together: What is the one constant in life? Yes, change, but also our bodies. We take our bodies everywhere. Both titles revolve around loving our bodies and ourselves wholly and fully.
Winter of Worship by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Description: Told through an ever-queer lens, this collection is a patchwork of the pastoral and the “litter swirled around us”—a pandemic, global warming, a hometown hit by storms of fentanyl and Oxycontin scripts. A book of elegy told in ghazals, “Marble Runs,” and other forms, these poems reckon with loss: of climate, of fathers, of youth. From the cornfields of Pennsylvania to the streets of downtown Brooklyn, these poems refuse to forget, refuse to lose “an ounce of gentleness.”
All Shall Be Well
Description: Angie and Pat are a couple living in Hong Kong who have been together for over four decades. After Pat's unexpected death, Angie finds herself at the mercy of her extended family as she struggles to retain both her dignity and the home that they shared for over 30 years.
Why they pair well together: While both the film and the collection center loss—of a loved one, of a community, of a way of life—they are also both ultimately concerned with how we move through that grief in a way that honors the past and the potential of the future.
About Andrea
Collection Management Librarian Andrea is an avid audiobook and manga reader. When she isn't chipping away at her reading list, she's attending local pop culture conventions.
About Dontaná
Dontaná is a Collection Management Librarian who was born with an unending reading list. She is almost always reading two books simultaneously and is easily distracted by cool covers.
