S7 E4: Roxi Power, Julia Chiapella, & Dion O'Reilly on Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 Election

With Julia Chiapella and Dion O’Reilly, Roxi Power discusses the just-published anthology she co-edited, Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 Election (Carbonation Press 2025) with 100+ amazing poets. This urgent, lightning-fast book was a collaborative effort by 8 editors between election and inauguration day to capture feelings about and implications of this critical election. The call asked for compassionate but courageous poems that transform readers through visionary rather than didactic language. Editors Katie Sarah Zale, Paul E. Nelson, allia abdullah-matta, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Robert Lashley, Roxi Power, CChristy White, and Theresa Whitehill spent long days over the holidays choosing a wide range of poems reflecting the editors’ different poetics as well as national and international diversity of region, identity, style, and issues affected by this historic election including immigration, reproductive rights, climate change, white supremacy, and more. Publisher Greg Bem made the project happen fast. Along with our own poems, we discuss poems in the book written on election night “as the map turned red”, including “Election Night Blues” by Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington; a poem about self-care and healing, “the-bigger-picture” by Dana Teen Lomax; and a poem by Martín Espada about freedom-seeking children playing soccer in detention camps.  Order Winter in America (Again here.  Listen to readings from our 1/19 and 1/20 launches on KPFK Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, on Bibliocracy with Andrew Tonkovich on 4 Thursdays at 2:30, starting Feb. 5.  Join us at our launch events in Seattle (Feb. 4, Seattle U.); Tucson (Feb. 15, Gallery of Food;  San Francisco (March 1, Et Al and summer TBA, City Lights Bookstore), Los Angeles AWP (March 27, CSU-Los Angeles); Santa Cruz (April 1, Bookshop Santa Cruz and April 15, Inter Act, Satori Arts), Lit Balm Interactive Livestream (April 26 & 27 2pm EST), & more.