FEBRUARY

I have two poems in Volume 7, Issue 3 of Tinderbox Poetry Journal. One of them, Shibboleth, was a finalist for the Tinderbox 2021 Contest and the other, Etymologicon, was selected by the editors as the Winner of the Majda Gama Editors’ Prize. About it, the readers and editors commented: "This poem professes discomfort with language, while displaying a playful mastery of it. 'Etymologicon' is provocative and startling, and the momentum it builds leaves you feeling like you've been yanked suddenly into pursuit of something."

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Good news: AFRICANAMERICAN’T has been accepted for publication by FlowerSong Press.

Let me brag on this manuscript real quick. Since 2018, it’s been on quite the journey (as I have!) and has seen several iterations. A version, in chapbook form, was selected by Solmaz Sharif as runner up for Burnside Review’s chapbook contest and the Center for Book Arts 2019 Chapbook Contest; another version—the chapbook African, American—was selected as winner by Selah Saterstrom and published by New Delta Review in 2019. Versions of the full length project was recognized as one of 8 finalists (out of 397 submissions) for Rose Metal Press' Open Reading last year and this year, was one of 10 finalists (out of nearly 900 submitted manuscripts) for Nightboat Books' Poetry Prize. And now we're here...

I'll share more details as they become available.

— June 2021

“Since I think African, American is interested in both fracture and intersection, my hope would be that readers will find the ways in which our collective stories intersect, fractured as they might be. I’m hoping that what resonates more than anything is how certain decisions (political or otherwise) have impacts on the nuclear, personal level. It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of having conversations about issues such as (im)migration, citizenship, nationality, patriotism, school-to-prison pipeline, state-sanctioned violence, etc. in a theoretical way that ends up diminishing (or even erasing) the reality that the lives of real people are at stake, even as they become national/global talking points.

As the chapbook is, I want to believe, in conversation with the rest of my work, even as I am trying now to veer from strict autobiography, I want to hope that it continues to teach me how to look for/at how the personal speaks to the larger contexts of our historical, national, and global lives.”

—from Interview with Esteban Rodriguez @ EcoTheo Review; November 6, 2020.

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Two poems from African, American were accepted for inclusion in the CONTRA: TEXAS POETS SPEAK OUT anthology (eds. Rooster Martinez and Chibbi Orduña, published by Flowersong Press; November 3, 2020). The anthology’s mission is to: a) activate people to register to vote; b) activate people to GO VOTE; and c) donate all profits from book sales to MOVE Texas.

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Of the 397 submissions sent in during Rose Metal Press’ Open Reading Period, AFRICANAMERICAN’T made it to the finalist round, along with 7 other manuscripts. Four other manuscripts were accepted for publication.

—September 22, 2020

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“Check our our new writing workshop series which kicks off this Saturday with @mrafalomo’s writing workshop, "The Poetics of Ms. Heering," happening Saturday on September 12 from 2-3:30 pm. To learn more about Ayo’s workshop or to purchase tickets to his workshop/ all four of our September writing workshops, please visit: bit.ly/wanworkshop”

— Write About Now (@wanpoetry).

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“In this episode, we get to chat (and giggle and lose all sense of time) with an old friend, Ayokunle Falomo, whose first incendiary chapbook entitled African, American has been published. He has promised us that it will be available for purchase from New Delta Review as soon as COVID insanity ends! We talk with Ayo about the many steps of working on a decade-long project, and we tackle the age old question of writing between the personal and the political, the body of a nation and the body of an individual. Not to mention that he gives us chills with his reading.”

—from Bloomsday Literary’s F***ing Shakespeare Podcast (Shakespeare's Shorts; August 25, 2020.)

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