Join us Friday, October 13th at 7pm PT when Amber Flame celebrates the release of her poetry collection, apocrifa, with Miah Jeffra at 9th Ave!
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtube.com/live/ArL0vmTZnq4
Praise for apocrifa
"An elegant, loving, and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."--Jacqueline Woodson, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature 2018-2019, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Laureate 2018
"Enter this exquisitely delicate collection of poems and experience the tender tensions that shudder and shake the chords of love. Part love song, part dictionary of love, Amber Flame's apocrifa offers us a language for love's many faces and phases and allows us to bear witness to the lovers' attempt to 'sink and surface' through love together; balancing the pull and tug of the desire to nest with one's beloved and the itch of having 'all the world still to taste.' In these poems we are invited to feast on both the sweet glut of love and language and the agonies which can make 'a whole desert in [our] teeth.'"--Brionne Janae, author of Blessed are the Peacemakers
About apocrifa
apocrifa imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims "i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world" and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of "a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones." Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.
Jacqueline Woodson says about apocrifa, "An elegant, loving and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."
About Amber Flame
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame's work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame's second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
About Miah Jeffra
Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What's Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology. Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse. Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. Miah's latest novel is American Gospel.
show less
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtube.com/live/ArL0vmTZnq4
Praise for apocrifa
"An elegant, loving, and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."--Jacqueline Woodson, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature 2018-2019, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Laureate 2018
"Enter this exquisitely delicate collection of poems and experience the tender tensions that shudder and shake the chords of love. Part love song, part dictionary of love, Amber Flame's apocrifa offers us a language for love's many faces and phases and allows us to bear witness to the lovers' attempt to 'sink and surface' through love together; balancing the pull and tug of the desire to nest with one's beloved and the itch of having 'all the world still to taste.' In these poems we are invited to feast on both the sweet glut of love and language and the agonies which can make 'a whole desert in [our] teeth.'"--Brionne Janae, author of Blessed are the Peacemakers
About apocrifa
apocrifa imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims "i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world" and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of "a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones." Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.
Jacqueline Woodson says about apocrifa, "An elegant, loving and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."
About Amber Flame
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame's work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame's second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
About Miah Jeffra
Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What's Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology. Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse. Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. Miah's latest novel is American Gospel.
Join us Friday, October 13th at 7pm PT when Amber Flame celebrates the release of her poetry collection, apocrifa, with Miah Jeffra at 9th Ave!
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtube.com/live/ArL0vmTZnq4
Praise for apocrifa
"An elegant, loving, and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."--Jacqueline Woodson, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature 2018-2019, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Laureate 2018
"Enter this exquisitely delicate collection of poems and experience the tender tensions that shudder and shake the chords of love. Part love song, part dictionary of love, Amber Flame's apocrifa offers us a language for love's many faces and phases and allows us to bear witness to the lovers' attempt to 'sink and surface' through love together; balancing the pull and tug of the desire to nest with one's beloved and the itch of having 'all the world still to taste.' In these poems we are invited to feast on both the sweet glut of love and language and the agonies which can make 'a whole desert in [our] teeth.'"--Brionne Janae, author of Blessed are the Peacemakers
About apocrifa
apocrifa imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims "i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world" and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of "a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones." Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.
Jacqueline Woodson says about apocrifa, "An elegant, loving and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."
About Amber Flame
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame's work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame's second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
About Miah Jeffra
Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What's Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology. Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse. Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. Miah's latest novel is American Gospel.
read more
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtube.com/live/ArL0vmTZnq4
Praise for apocrifa
"An elegant, loving, and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."--Jacqueline Woodson, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature 2018-2019, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Laureate 2018
"Enter this exquisitely delicate collection of poems and experience the tender tensions that shudder and shake the chords of love. Part love song, part dictionary of love, Amber Flame's apocrifa offers us a language for love's many faces and phases and allows us to bear witness to the lovers' attempt to 'sink and surface' through love together; balancing the pull and tug of the desire to nest with one's beloved and the itch of having 'all the world still to taste.' In these poems we are invited to feast on both the sweet glut of love and language and the agonies which can make 'a whole desert in [our] teeth.'"--Brionne Janae, author of Blessed are the Peacemakers
About apocrifa
apocrifa imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims "i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world" and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of "a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones." Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.
Jacqueline Woodson says about apocrifa, "An elegant, loving and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."
About Amber Flame
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame's work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame's second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
About Miah Jeffra
Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What's Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology. Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse. Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. Miah's latest novel is American Gospel.
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