BlazeVox Books, 2017 | cover art, Chuck Tingley
"My Next Heart is a journey through a city the way it should be: many hands, many images, many cars with many windows down. There's the tender humor of Alana Kelley's "The Only Muscle I Work Out Is My Tongue" ("we'll sit facing one another / on the floor / and take turns french kissing") and there is the water's hollow echoing through the pages when Brian McMahon writes "life is the sound / of a pebble plunging / into the Buffalo River" and there is the confessional sadness of Tom Dreitlein. All of the work inside of this anthology sings to a different corner of the place where it was born. Even the work that isn't about Buffalo sings to a very particular emotional interior that builds its own, new home. You will love this anthology if you love a place you were born, or born again. You will love this anthology if you close your eyes from somewhere you are and dream of somewhere you want to be. There are many ways to see yourself in this bounty of lovely, furious, heartfelt, high stakes writing. I hope you will find at least one."
— Hanif Abdurraqib, author of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry is a collection of poetry from young Buffalo writers. The poems in this anthology capture the energy and creative output from the city’s thriving slam, alt-lit, spoken word, language poetry, academic, and publishing communities. These communities often function separately, they have their own spaces and vocabularies, and their contributions to the literary and language arts are radically different — but as different as they are, the poets in this collection are enmeshed. They trade places and ideas, share stages and projects, and support each other’s endeavors.