August is a hard month for my body, but, with joy, the Sealey Challenge gives me every excuse to cuddle up near the AC, with a good book to keep me company as the cats take naps nearby.  Poetry has long been the answer for me. What to take with me to doctors appointments to deal with unknown wait times? Poetry.  What to turn all my little-jotted-down observations from surgery months into?  Poetry.  And this time of year, where the singed-polluted air rattles the oxygen of my body, and a heat that waves through the scar tissue that climbs the mangled lattice of my spine, I find the answer again: Poetry. To hold up in hibernation from the heat with a stack of books, 31 poetry books to be exact.  That, at least is the challenge proposed by Nicole Sealey, an idea now in its fifth year, to read 31 books in the 31 days of August.

This will be my first year participating and it feels like such a natural fit for the season.  Think of lovers reading in the shade of a tree, a mother reading under an umbrella at the beach as kids splash in the waves.  And for me, and other disabled folx, reading in a cool room in recline, in a tangle of sheets.  The heat invites us to relax, to slow down, to read. And Sealey has put that invitation into writing. 

Reading itself has for a long time been this kind of a crutch for me.  This is how I survived many spine surgeries.  In having to spend many months in bed, it has been laying down to read that has given me the most respite.  This is when I am most in-tune with my own pain and yet incased in the love that is literature.  I can time travel, I can body swap, I can music lullaby, or get into the kink of things.  I can grieve, I can rejoice, all within a few lines, a few good books of poetry. 

Today I read the phenomenal book, be/trouble, by bridgette bianca from cover to cover throughout my beautiful, lazy Sunday.  Unfolding page by page is a powerful book of black female identity in America.  I underlined and read aloud from these poems, to find the cadence of the words offered as both peace and rebellion.  I thank both bianca for this incredible work that should win all the awards and be distributed at all the bus stops and waiting rooms of the world, but I will also thank the #sealeychallenge for declaring August the month to READ POETRY.  This challenge is to set the time aside, to turn the radio down, to let eyes roll over the words as shapes and feelings demonstrate themselves within the body.  Though the start of be/trouble takes on a contentious interpretation of the phrase, “black girl magic,” and for good reason, I must admit I find books like these to be a kind of magic portal created by the author.  A portal into new perspectives and ideas, the closest thing we may ever get to walking in each other’s shoes.  And damn if it isn’t just fine to take this walk with bianca.

And though reading is generally a solo act, #thesealeychallenge flips this situation around, by connecting a network of readers and book recommendations.  People who will gush over enjambments and gawk at uses of alliteration and allegory, will notice meter and internal rhymes.  Folx, who read the publisher’s info and author bios in the backs of books.  Poets like me who love to collect books at live readings and will excitedly flip pages to see author inscriptions after getting our copies signed.  Readers who also know poetry is urgent, poetry is now, poetry is in the current of all things flowing between us.  It is lifeblood/bloodstone.  It is marrow, it is the truth of our tongues.  In these past few years especially, poetry has been a necessary comfort, a soul food urging us to push forward, to find a better future.

And for my better future August won’t be the hard month, it will be a month to relax and read poetry.

3 Suggestions for Success:

1. Pick short books of poems, namely chapbooks.

2. Listen to an audio collection on busy days.

3. Need a day to recharge? Take the day off, if anything, try your own hand at writing a poem inspired by something you’ve read!

2 Prompts:

These prompts are based on Shira Erlichman’s Odes to Lithium, one of my Sealey Challenge picks. I first discovered Shira’s work when she was visiting teaching artist at The Poetry Lab in March of 2021:

1. Write an ode to a medicine or self-care practice that helps maintain your balance as a human.

2. Many chapbooks are based on a central theme. What is the theme of your first/next chapbook? Write a poem that focusses on this theme. What does this theme taste like? Smell like? What feeling does it evoke in your body?

Important Notes:

• A chapbook is typically a book of poems under 40-to-50 pages.  To be considered a full-length book it must be over 49 pages.  Hybrid forms exist as well with a combination of art or prose as possibilities. 

• An ode is a celebratory poem of praise.

My SealEy Challenge List of 31 Poetry Books:

(in the Order they Were Stacked)

1. Acid Verse: Queer Uprising, A literary Journal by Los Angeles Poet Society Press 2021)

2. Start with a Small Guitar, Lynne Thompson (What Book Press 2013)

3. Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation, Mariahdessa Ekere Tallie (Grand Concourse Press 2015)

4. Small Wars, Little Revolutions, Alyssa Matuchniak (World Stage Press 2018)

5. Purgatory has an Address, Romaine Washington (Bamboo Dart Press 2021)

6. Makes the Daughter-in-Law Cry, Danielle Mitchell (Tebot Bach 2017)

7. The Beat of an Immigrant Chicano, by Juan Cardenas (Swan World 2020)

8. Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, torrin a. greathouse (Milkweed Editions 2020)

9. Invisible Light, Teresa Mei Chuc (Many Voices Press 2018)

10. The Problem with Solitaire, Lucia Misch (Write Bloody North 2020)

11. Breathing Through Concrete, Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal (Rebel Ink Publishing 2019)

12. Can't No Woman Woman Like Me, Jessica D Gallion (World Stage Press 201

13. be/trouble, bridgette bianca (The Accomplices 2020)

14. Odes to Lithium, Shira Erlichman (Alice James Books 2019)

15. Fossil of the New Scene: Chapbooks 2012-2014, Kevin Ridgeway (Arroyo Seco Press 2020)

16. At the Drive-in Volcano, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Tupelo Press 2007)

17. The Beauty, Jane Hirshfield (Knopf 2015)

18. Breeds of Breath, Matthew Feinstein (Alien Buddha Press 2020)

19. Forbidden Plumbs: Poems in Quarantine, Peggy Dobreer (Glass Lyre Press 2021)

20. Grit & Grace, Tobi Aflier (The Orchard Street Press 2021)

21. Grandmothers with Voices, Sabreen Adeeba (World Stage Press 2020)

22. This is How we Disappear, Titilope Sonuga (Write Bloody North 2019)

23. Serious Longing, Jessica M. Wilson (Swan World 2015)

24. Everything is Radiant Between the Hates, Rich Ferguson (Moon Tide Press 2020)

25. Letdown, Sonia Greenfield (White Pine Press 2020)

26. Cut to Bloom, Arhm Choi Wild (Write Bloody Press 2020)

27. The Undulating Lind: Writing Poetry through Belly Dance, Suzanne Allen, Shannon Phillips, Aruni Wijesinghe (Picture Show Press 2021)

28. vos sos {you are}, Becca Hiraheta (Self-published 2021)

29. Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, Allison Joseph (Red Hen Press 2018)

30. Mowing Leaves of Grass, Matt Sedillo (Flowersong Press 2019)

31. Holiday in the Island of Grief, Jeffrey McDaniel (University of Pittsburgh Press 2020)