On the Horizon: Upcoming Releases from Offing Contributors

As The Offing enters its first year anniversary, we have been excited to share our contributors work as we grow and develop community. As we look forward we are excited to highlight the work of our contributors and staff. We are invaluably inspired by both the submissions and the care our editors take in keeping our magazine necessary and relevant to conversations of quality literary work.

Below are four editors with new releases available for pre-order. Get to know more about the team that brings you The Offing and the best ways to support their work!

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The Dozen by Casey Rocheteau on Sibling Rivalry Press

Dedicated to her three grandmothers, Casey Rocheteau’s latest release calls on the long-standing Black cultural tradition “The Dozen”. Organized in four sections of twelve poems, The Dozen features the dual icon of Topsy, an enslaved character from the seminal Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the South Asian elephant electrocuted on Coney Island at the turn of the century.

Excerpt:

Witch Hunt

The heirs to the Great Land Heists
parcel and fence the shoreline.
Their blood: slick with thieving.
When they call your name and ask
you to answer for the heresy
of your being, disobey gravity.
Untether your shame & levitate
like caskets don’t come in your size.
Fire is a straw man’s fear, so
extinguish their torches, you river,
you cauldron. Open the sky
with the obsidian mirrors of your eyes.
Call on the golden marrow of
your ancestors. Burn your face
into their retinas so they recognize
the ghosts who uproot them, who
bloody their dreams. We
who return, remain.

About The Work:

  • The poem “Two Byrds” took Rocheteau almost a decade to write. Her biological father’s last name is Byrd, and when she were writing her undergrad thesis she came across the diary of William Byrd II, the colonial Virginia slaveowner. Rochereau shares this was unnerving beyond the horror of the mundane descriptions of learning Latin one second and torturing a small child for wetting the bed because it was personal. For all she know, that child could be her literal ancestor, and James Byrd’s too.
  • The book’s cover was designed by friend of the author, Detroit tattoo artist and musician Vanessa Reynolds, and after being stumped on an idea for the cover, the Topsy doll came into her life, the Topsy poems came and so did the cover.

Creative Process Playlist (includes but is not limited to):

“Feeling Good,” Lauryn Hill cover; “Through The Wire,” Kanye West; “Don’t Cry” Tunde Olaniran; and “u” Kendrick Lamar.  note: Rochteau actually has a song per poem playlist for The Dozen, you can listen to here.

What Else to Read: The first time I was black Union Station Magazine

Pre-Order: The Dozen on Sibling Rivalry Press

Dreams

Dream With A Glass Chamber by Aricka Foreman on YesYes Books

As an editor for our Enumerate department, Aricka Foreman has curated breathtaking visuals that illuminate and elevate the written text. Her own poetic work utilizes the same urgency and technique. Her debut chapbook has been described as “a conjuring” so be sure to catch this magic.

Excerpt:

September

The air rises to the edge of summer
at 136th and Broadway. Someone bangs
metal with a hammer. A woman on the fourth
floor across the alley plays a melancholy
opera. They both try to fix things inside one
atmosphere. My lover is four states
away and I walk the streets for crocus
and lilac signs that everything is temporary
or at the beginning of the wrong time.
I’d rather put a bell tower inside my chest
or sand inside my shoes. I’ve made my way through
the year of burying. I’m learning to live without. Time
makes room for the digging and I am envious
of the trees now, know in mere weeks they’ll dye
their leaves a different shade of shout. And no one will
tell them move on. No one will say it’s about time.

About The Work:

  • I listened to a ton of Little Dragon while writing this book. The last Little Dragon concert I attended was with my friend Blair, whom the book is dedicated to…I watched Passing Strange by Stu and played a lot of guitar. I read a lot of memory related writing by Toni Morrison, Avashai Margalit. I started thinking of James Baldwin’s essays in context to depression and grief. There’s something strange and interesting that happens when you read work about how the brain processes loss, and then read how other writers negotiate loss, especially in their everyday experiences. Every day doesn’t mean you’re staring idly out the window, watching the lake swell and crash against the rocks below. Some days it’s barely making it out of the house, going to class, walking home from the library, and being hit with a wave of inconsolable sadness, weeping, and hysterically laughing at some silly thing that has nothing to do with the loss at all.
  • Buzzfeed’s “31 Grilled Cheeses That Are Better Than A Boyfriend” gave me something to treat myself to after grief counseling. The self-care act of making something useful and decadent with my hands, in a small way, made me feel like I could cull some small victories. I tried their French Toast recipes (the Bacon and Nutella stuffed one) as well, but that just led to a simultaneous stroke check and pre-diabetic coma that lasted well into the following day. Only try it if you’re already living on the edge kids.

Creative Process Playlist (includes but is not limited to):

“Fool of Me”, Me’Shell Ndegeocello,  “God’s Trying To Tell You Something”, Mississippi Mass Choir; “Stranger Things Have Happened”, Foo Fighters ; “Hallelujah”, Jeff Buckley; “Just Like Water”, Lauryn Hill

What Else to Read: “Monologues in Bars By White People With Good Intentions” The James Franco Review

Pre-Order: Dreaming With a Glass Chamber on YesYes Books.

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Trouble the Water by Derrick Austin on BOA Editions Ltd.

An accomplished and dynamic poet, Derrick Austin’s debut full-length collection of poetry was the 14th A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize Winner. Both a gospel and testimony of Black, queer and human, Austin’s work evokes an irreverent kind of invocation.

Excerpt:

Sleeping Alone

Consider the moths throwing themselves into lampposts,
knocking the threshold of light: consider the fireflies’

green glow, clear as human need: consider the shining
poppies: consider the ghosts of his hands on the mirror:

as each light goes out, consider he, too, will sleep alone:
consider how these arms are empty in bed and know

when darkness presses a poppy’s soft, pink folds,
it’s not absence, for once, just another coupling.

About The Work:

  • Fun connection to The Offing: Two poems in the book “Bow Down” and “Sans Souci” were initially written because of dares from contributor, Lauren Clark, who challenged Austin to use a Beyonce song title as a title to a poem and then to delve into the physicality of bodies when writing about sex. He says, thanks to her I took from Queen Bey’s “Bow Down/I Been On” and basically wrote my own version of “Partition.”
  • The cover art is by Diedrick Brackens. After collaborating together, Austin saw the cover image, 10-79, in a Powerpoint presentation Brackens gave on his artistic practice. Later, he found out 10-79 is named after the police radio code for “call the coroner.” The work: inspired by the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Creative Process Playlist (includes but is not limited to):

Sade’s “Kiss of Life,” Phyllis Hyman’s “No One Can Love You More,” Toni Braxton’s “The Art of Love,” FKA twigs’s “Papi Pacify,” and Le1f’s “Hush Bb.”

What Else to Read:Sleeping with Straight Boys” in Dreginald Issue 8.

Pre-Order: Trouble The Water on BOA Editions Ltd.

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[sugar in the tank] by jayy dodd on Pizza Pi Press

The debut chapbook from Senior Editor jayy dodd is the latest from Boston-based Pizza Pi Press, founded by poets Jess Riz and Cassandra De Alba. Titled after the Texan colloquialism for Black queerness, dodd speaks to the softness and fragility of boyhood while navigating the body and desire.

Excerpt:

Loins

if father is a man’s disease
to call him daddy is the
virus spreading from his seed.
                    a father can love only in
                    the ways he knows how.
what happens to the father
when even death seems to
overlook him. what is fate
to the reproduction of flesh?
who is the father in the hate
of the son?
                    a father can be only
                    in the skin he feels how.
to be the son of sickness, a famished
memory of fatherly imagination.
to be son.
to be man and son, for father.
for civility to replace love,
for fear to be trajectory, for
                    a father can die only
                    in the ways he knows how.

About The Work:  

  • The majority of the work in the debut accumulated over dodd’s final years in his undergrad and originally began as collection of untitled letters to former white lovers. However, the work developed beyond that when the poet took a vow of abstinence from white boys.
  • The entire chapbook features art by Brooklyn artist and stylist Georgina Arroyo. After reviewing the manuscript she created a collection of original pieces she later juxtaposed with each poem.  

Creative Process Playlist (includes but is not limited to):

“Mighty Real” by Sylvester; “Knocks Me Off My Feet” by Luther Vandross; “iv. Sweatpants” by Childish Gambino; and “Hold On” by SBTRKT ft. Sampha

What Else to Read: When A Nigga Call You a Faggot on Shade Blog

Buy: [sugar in the tank] on Pizza Pi Press.