No Sweet Without Brine is both a soulful and celebratory collection that summons sticky sweet memories with an acrid aftertaste of deep thought. Satisfying moments are captured in odes to Idris Elba's dulcet tones on a meditation app and the satisfaction of half-priced Entenmann's poundcake; in childlike observations of parental Black love, the coveted female form on Jet Magazine covers, and the desire for Zamunda to be a real place full of Black joy. The sour taps into an analysis of reclusiveness, silencing catcalls from men on the street, and detailed recipes and advice to the Black girls forced to endow themselves with armor against the world.
Manick will be in conversation with Tafisha A. Edwards & Steven Leyva.
Tafisha A. Edwards. Edwards is author of two chapbooks: In the Belly of the Mirror (Telemagenta Press, 2021) and The Bloodlet (Phantom Books, 2016) winner of the Breitling Chapbook Prize. Her collection Asunder was a finalist for the 2022 The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of a 2021 Rubys Artist Grant and a 2022 Maryland State Arts Council Regional Artist Award. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Apogee Journal, Poetry Northwest, Washington Square Review, Winter Tangerine and other print and online publications.
Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an assistant professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design.
https://www.politics-prose.com/cynthia-manick