Poetry Books

Dudgrick Bevins on teaching, trauma, and telling stories 🧑‍🏫😨🖋️

In the sweaty New York City July heat, I sat down with my friend and colleague, Dudgrick Bevins. We talked about his new poetry volume, Vigil, exploring a new generation’s relationship with school shootings and the unheard voices breathing desperately into a chorus of narrative poetry. Bevins is not only a prolific interdisciplinary artist and poet but a fellow educator. Here he reflects on what it means to navigate the role of teacher when talking to students about gun violence while still processing the chaotic internal emotions that each individual experiences in the aftermath of traumatic school shootings.

Poetry as protest and expression of pride 🌈

During the 2016 US Presidential Elections, I began to write more and more poems in reaction to current events. Before long I realized I had enough poems to make up a chapbook-length collection, and that’s what I thought it would be. But as time went on, I continued to write. I ended up with a collection of 40 poems, which I call exam(i)nation.

People often say politics aren’t personal. But that’s actually not true. What goes on in the political sphere affects me very directly as a queer person, just as it does for women, people of color, immigrants, and all the other groups of people under attack by conservative politics. It can’t be anything but personal when our lives are at stake.

exam(i)nation is both a protest and expression of pride. I hope you will be curious to learn about my experiences.

A story-in-poems about growing up gay in rural Appalachia

We couldn’t be more excited about the publication of the debut full-length poetry collection by Dudgrick Bevins. Route 4, Box 358 is a powerful first collection by any standard. Though you got a taste of Dudgrick’s Georgia roots in the Georgia Dusk chapbook, Route 4 delves much deeper into the poet’s past. Here’s a preview of the original photography also included in the book! Be sure to pick up your copy.

A Decade and a Half of Poetry: New book! New music!

These new releases have been a long time coming! Over fifteen years in the making! Finally here, the immeasurable fold: selected poems 2000-2015 is out now! Get a preview of the original drawings from the book above!

As a bonus, obscure mechanics, my first full-length album which I originally released on my website in 2008, has been remastered with bonus tracks and is available wherever you like to get your music (including embedded below)!